The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1929 WHAT’S WRONG WITH EVERYTHING ?

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 596, 23 February 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1929 WHAT’S WRONG WITH EVERYTHING ?

THE physician and the preacher have combined this week without design but with effective co-operation to tell man, as the higher animal, something about his physical frailties and his spiritual failings. Together they have provided thoughtful discourses which call for serious attention and week-end reflection.

First, at Wellington, Dr. J. S. Elliott, president of the British Medical Association (New Zealand branch) revealed the chemical compounds of man and valued them commercially at five shillings on the basis of post-war prices, and noted the conflict of medical science with the consequences of this modern life which makes the higher animal appear to be more stupid than apes, and suggests that man’s wisdom is hardly worth liall-a-crown. The physician observed that the poor “homo sapiens” had not yet had time to accommodate himself to the speed, the fever and the fret of the present day, the noise and excitement, the intensive education of adolescents, particularly of girls, the want of repose generally, dislike of honest labour and love of pleasure—in short, the madness of modern life and its plagues and penalties of nervous disorders. Then, at Auckland, a few days later, the Rev. J. F. Goldie, the new president of the Methodist Church Conference, referred to what might be termed the sickness in religion, its apparent loss of vitality, and sometimes even the lack of confidence in the pulpit. He, too, deplored the frenzied search for pleasure and prosperity as though these were the real aim of life. ,

Though both the physician and the preacher were fortified by optimism and their own faith in the quiet strength that flows like a deep current under the frothy surface of a troubled sea, they made clear an inference that the higher animal was in a bad way, physically and spiritually, and clearly in need of the curative effects of hard work, simple pleasures, and common sense. Perhaps it could be proved to cynical satisfaction without really proving anything, that the forces of mankind are being spent foolishly and also that religion has become a spent force, but that sort of proof would not lift the animal man any higher. He is still low enough to need encouragement and resolute inspiration. As for the sickness of man’s body, it is not easy to find a reasonable excuse for bad health. There has been so much said about the growth of medical science, and so many prominent directions given to innumerable shortcuts to perfect physical fitness, that every man might well be his own doctor and defy disease. It ought to be possible for any man to keep scientific watch on himself and note the varying efficiency of his body just as a good engineer listens to his engine and, listening, is able to tell at once that something has gone wrong. But, alas! The higher education of the higher animal has not climbed so high as that yet. And everywhere communities stagger under the increasing burden of expenditure on hospitals and treatment of disease, while individuals pursue all sorts of phantom cures and multitudes of men and women, overtaken by epidemics, die and disappear as suddenly in the presence of medical science as their ancestors died in the mists of superstition. In contrast to man, as the higher animal, many of the lower animals are so ashamed at having been stricken with malignant sickness that they run away and hide.

Who could answer the pertinent question why it is that most people are at their worst in the morning after eight hours of perfect rest, and at their best in the evening when they have been most active? Dogmatic cranks, of course, put the blame on tea or coffee, and advocate a big drink nightly of either cold or hot \vater. But that does not answer the question. Medical science has yet to learn why. Perhaps, after all, there is more than five shillings’ worth of compounds in man. As for spiritual sickness the cause is almost certainly the same as that which keeps medical science in pursuit of old and new diseases. What is wrong with religion and the church in the general sense of the word is exactly what is wrong with everything. The trouble is the stupid fever and fret of modern life. It may be true that world unrest has sapped the force of church religion, but fortunately for the ultimate good of a distracted world there is enough vitality left to enable many earnest religious leaders and workers to keep free of epidemical disillusionment and foolish despair, and strive gladly for the restoration of unassailable health in things spiritual. There is strength in a confession of temporary weakness, and when physicians and preachers are equally willing to study the frailties and follies of the higher animal, and seek to dispel them, there is reason for hope that apes will not excel man in wisdom.