ATTACHMENTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 874, 18 January 1930, Page 8

ATTACHMENTS

(Written for THE SUN ’by the REV. CHARLES CHANDLER.) QUR attachments are all too often the things that enslave us. He who would he truly happy must not form too many of them. .4s the barnacles on a ship impede its progress, so our attachments hold us hack in the business of life. For every joy derived in the forming of one of them, there is the compensating sadness to be experienced in its loss. The truth of this was very forcibly before my notice quite recently, when preparing to leave New Zealand. Packing occupied every spare moment for a month. The nearest I have ever gone to a domestic v:rangle, was when being repeatedly asked by my tcife whether we should dispose of an ornament that used to belong to her grandmother's aunt, ’way back in the 'thirties, or whether we should burn a bundle of love letters that filled a box all on their own. Man is a born collector. He spends his life collecting all manner of things for silver-fish, moths and white ants to feed upon. It's just the same in the mental realm. There are dusty archives wherein we store all the worn-out ideas which we are so reluctant to discard. Cobwebs, dust and mustiness befoul the mental atmosphere,, hence new ideas seldom feel at home. They stay no longer than the unwelcome guest who senses our feelings of unpleasant surprise at his calling. The only attachments we make that have the “ foggiest” chance of becoming our eternal possessions are just the very things that, according to our superficial judgment, are the least attractive. Still, as of old. we will barter our eternal welfare for a mess of pottage, leaving the tired end of our lives for God to grapple with. NEXT WEEK: CUPS AND MACKINTOSHES.