LABELS ARE LIBELS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 852, 21 December 1929, Page 10

LABELS ARE LIBELS

THE QOIET CORNER

(Written for THE SUN by the Rev. Charles Chandler.)

THIS wanting everybody to think the one way upon any given subject is absolutely ridiculous. In nature herself there is a uniformity of principle , but a diversity in expression. The same law governs the growth of a potato and the growth of a kauri pine. The force of capilliary attraction accounts for the growth of everything in the vegetable kingdom, but beyond this oneness of the law which operates, there is extreme diversity. Religion, in its manifold expressions embodies the one idea of a Supreme Power, and apart from this fundamental basis of agreement every label which we'attach to our beliefs is a libel. Doctrines of original sin, reincarnation, and of the unreality of matter; of hell, purgatory, and of personal immortality are believed i7i and’not believed in by all of us, and to suggest that a person can subscribe to every tenet of the particular faith with which he is branded is pure humbug. We lap over here, and we lap over there. There is a bit. of the Quaker in every Roman Catholic, and a dash of both in every non-conformist. Every sincere Jeio can agree with a great deal of what another Jew taught, some two thousand years ago in and around Nazareth. Truth has many facets , and the only thing that denominational labels have ever done has been to disunite the very people whom God intends should be united. I was once asked by a cockney flower girl if I could play “God Save the King ” upon a mouth organ with variations. I could not, but she could and did. She took a good while getting through, and about every tenth note l recognised as a part of the original theme. A sensitive soul can trace the one theme running through all religion. There are far more points upon which we all agree, than there are upon which we disagree. Is BuO forms the common basis of most pharmaceutical concoctions, so a faith which is common to all mankind forms the basis of every man’s religion.

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