The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET. AUCKLAND FRIDAY. MARCH .21, 1930 “WHAT IS YOUR IDEA OF HEAVEN?”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 927, 21 March 1930, Page 10

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET. AUCKLAND FRIDAY. MARCH .21, 1930 “WHAT IS YOUR IDEA OF HEAVEN?”

THIS question lias exercised modern intellectual minds at Oxford and Cambridge, and yielded exactly the sort of answers one would expect to come out of those old fountainheads of the highest and most decorative education. Neither the president of the Oxford Union nor the head of the Cambridge Union to whom the interesting query was put by a London newspaper in search of a new stunt in symposia (which means getting other folk to do your thinking) could give any reply better than the response of a happy child. They merely succeeded in demonstrating again the well-known truth that a university education does not enable scholars to provide an intelligent idea of Heaven. It has, however, enabled most of them to get rid of the other place. Indeed, the representative intellectuals, with more leisure than logic at their disposal and with characteristic flippancy, were able only to modernise or bring into line with the gaiety of the age the ancient imagery surrounding the question. Instead of picturing “angels in the clouds, rolls and trumpets, white garments and palm-branches,” to say nothing of golden paths and pearly gates, the Oxford scholar substituted a light airplane for wings and Rolls-Royce cars for chariots. And he was willing to be content with macadamised roads if he also, when not motoring on Elysian highways, were allowed ample leisure to read all the books, see all the pictures (not cinema films) and have the joy of three novels and three new plays a week by his favourite authors and dramatists. The Cambridge representative was less covetous as to pleasure and more inclined to be content with the Heaven he knows on earth. After much expensive education the erudite gentleman, however, had come to the conclusion that Heaven as a place was beyond his imagination. Perhaps this idea was inevitable since his only standard of comparison had been the magnificence of AVembley. To most people the very question itself will seem impiety at its best and idiotcy at its worst. But since it has been raised and submitted to the leading schools of thought for intellectual diseussion, it is regrettable that the ideas of Heaven, so far, have Teen so crude and childish. If Oxford and Cambridge can yield: nothing better in theological or spiritual thought than fanciful ideas of a paradise of smooth speeding together with perfect art galleries, theatres, and libraries supplied exclusively by modern authors, then it is clear that it is not in industry alone that Great Britain is backward and wilting. ? After all there is nothing impious iu or about discussing or devising ideas of Heaven. Eminent divines have pointed out that one of the thing's which chiefly distinguished Christianity from Greek paganism was “the Christian belief that the cosmic process was not an eternal recurrence, leading nowhere, hut a movement from a unique beginning to a unique end, to a future kingdom of God.” But no one has succeeded yet in providing an acceptable idea or image of that eternal kingdom. The Psychical Research Society and its multitude of seei's, sages and charlatans—no end of them—have tried to throw light on the mystery, but they, too, wander in mist. If it he true, as Sir Oliver Lodge asserts, rather than postulates, that the spiritual world is the reality, and life on this earth merely, an episode or thrilling adventure, then it seems reasonable that all the world’s best scholars and thinkers should he thinking more about bringing Heaven to earth. As a master of common sense said over a century ago, “the Deity has covered the earth with gay colours and scented it with rich perfumes, and shown us, by the plan and order of His works, that He has given man something better than a hare existence, and scattered over His creation a thousand superfluous joys, which are totally unnecessary to the mere support of life.” Would it not he better and a much higher service if the best intellect at Oxford and Cambridge devoted thought to securing ideas of making earth more, like Heaven? There are many hells not far distant from those halls of learning; the nation is shackled with poverty and idle pleasure ; the representatives of many nations in London cannot get away from the fear of war and the need of armaments; more than half of Britain’s churches are empty, and in the realm of politics there is no wisdom. The best idea of Heaven is happiness on earth.