SOUTHLAND PARABLES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 652, 4 January 1952, Page 10

SOUTHLAND PARABLES

SATURDAY MORNINGS, by "Ichthus’’ (the Very Rev. C. J. Tocker); the Southland Times Company; Invercargill; 8 -. JOR many years an article under the general heading, "Religion and Life," has been a Saturday feature in the Southland Times. The author, who for some time remained hidden behind a pén-name which allowed him to create for himself the fictitious character of an amiable and meditative farmer, is now revealed as the Very Rev. C. J. Tocker, Minister of St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church, Invercargill, and Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, 1948-49, A selection of his

earlier egsays’ has just n published, and there is a promise more to come. A religious column is not easily managed; but Mr. Tocker showed from the beginning that he was unafraid of the pitfalls; he had things to say, and he said them vigorously, often eloquently, and always with a fullness of thought and feeling which seemed to be the overflow of a mind stored with ideas and robust impressions. The articles led up, imevitably, to the parable or message which was their true aim; but the . progress was so pleasant, and through such interesting country, that the reader was often surprised by the deep seriousness of the closing sentences. Mr. Tocker has never separated religion from living. He looks about him at the countryside, the signs of the seasons, the birds (which he knows and loves), the people going to work or pleasure; and by these encounters he is moved to say things which . another man might say, less freshly, from the pulpit. The world is always for him the reflection of a-larger and purer reality, and in his best moments the. vision shines through his words. But his feet are on the earth. He is an angler, so that he has learnt to be patient and ob- » servant; and some of his best articles have been written from holiday camps by lake and stream. All that he writes has the imprint of a_ strong personality. If there are occasional weaknesses in the writing, they come from the use of phrases which speak of the library (for he has always been a hungry reader); but there are few weaknesses of .thought, and none of feeling. Mr. Tocker’s weekly column has become an institution in the Far South. It deserves, and will undoubtedly have, an audience elsewhere.

H.