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"RELIGION AND. THE
AVERAGE MAN".
ADDRESS BY CONSUL-GENERAL WILDER.
·62"
་་
abundance
are
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
118
Consul-General Wilder spoke in the Theatre Royal last evening under the auspices of the Y.V.C.A. on. Religion and the Average Man." After discussing how much we know of things spiritual and the means of knowing, and after speaking of the changing conceptions of in the Christ, the speaker discussed the possi- Deity finding its coinmou accepted interpretation that the bilities of life, and Master's service promise Proceeding he said: Lives différ in richness-in the number of activities, in enjoyment. Religion promises make life more abundant. When our bodies
are starred, we
weak, inert, hopeless. So when a man's soul life has few or no correspondences with the world out. side, when he is neither giving nor drawing strength, he starves. A pure and intelligent religion puts a man in touch with all things that are good; they become a part of his career, for the end of that man's efforts is to bring in the Kingdom of God. The topic "life" was a favourite one with Jesus in his teachings; and what kindles
more? It is the one thing above all else we want. Death is the end, decay is hopeless. Death is terrible. So it isn't strange that the Teacher who promised life-eren surrection from the dead-should be so cherisher by men. It isn't strauge that his doctrines are called "the gospel"-“ good news" When will poor, struggling despairing men learn that there is hope, cheer, life itself in their religion. if they will but lay hold on it? I talked with a fellow countryman, the other day to whom the teaching was real. With his New Testament opened at John he said in the feebleness of age, but with manly dignity: "Here I am, 87 years My sight is failing, my hearing is failing. My bodily powers are obviously weaker each day. To human eyes I am going down into the grave. Yet in this book I read life-life, much about life.. And it fills me with peace and hope: I go forward unafraid,' In this is something real. It is the highest form of testimony. Let us cease regarding our religion as a thing lugubrious, to be put away from us. Let us rejoice in the glad fact that death with the other terrors that haunt men are all capable of being scattered in the mercy and love of God.
of age.
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We all need greater abundance of life; we need to reflect on its opportunities. The busi- ness man who has no thought save on the things of the day is missing the point of life, for material things are but the foundation on which to lay the structure of higher manhood. He might enjoy the growth and great emotions of those who link up this world with things that fade not away. The pleasure-seeker im- poverishes himself in the search for elusions, and in things that perish in the using's. His soul might thrill with pure joys love for his fellows, watching institutions grow that shall relieve suffering and the oppressed, spread ing the seeds of forces that shall go on for good and not for evil, long after he is gone. Many a woman finds social success empty; she, too, needs the abundant life, crowded not with transitory, disappointing excitement and cares, but with wholesome, inspiring interests.
Thoreau says the gladdest fact in the world is the opportunity before each one of us to recast his life, to reinforce it, to make it over. There is
a law of growth and of cause and effect, but the regenerated life is too common to be questioned. Christian influence sometimes scores some mar- velous changes, and is there not something miraculous in the turning of a person from all that is bad to things that are good? I recall one visitor, an earnest missionary. Nature had done little for him; he was undersized, lus features were indeterminate; he evidently had a bad start from weak stock. Without religion operating upon h m he would have been a bar-room loafer a weakling soon to have gone down. The street corners at home are crowded with such. But he had enjoyed newness of life and some constructing spirit had built him up. He had dignity; his voice carried control and he looked the man; even his eye and face had taken on sterling quality. It
́was as if an old, defective, shabby, construction had been strengthened and reinforced to resist strain, and a facade of some beauty put upon it. There is no one of us that may not enrich and enoble our lives. The method lies in thinking God's thoughts after him; in reverence, in "doing the will."
To give us strength for a stormy life, we need a motive power-a theory of life, a faith. Prido and ambition help us only to a certain point. If we fail, our treasures are on earth and melt away. If we succeed, the futility of the thing sickens us. Philosophy is interesting beloved child, and then we cry out for the living, and beneficial, until we stand over the clay of s in which stress philosophy gives us nothing. The Christian faith is the greatest motive power the world has yet known; it is alive with person- ality; there is no experience in life that it does not meet, and which we have not seen it meet.
The speaker proceeded to address the young men, reminding them of the possibilities of life. It may be, he said, a question how far we are the architects of our own fortune, but there are scarcely any limits to the self-control, the power that comes from it. The highest efficiency is what a young man needs; the things that hamper impair one's readiness for the duty at hand. Many a man who boasts he is free to do as he pleases, uses that freedom to take on fetters. There are spiritual laws as there are natural laws, and time does not hide our sins; they must find us out. Cold ethios operate feebly to control a man. Ethics is useful, but there must be the personal touch and motive to enable a young
resist tempt atiou,
fire his
with being
lofty "Keep
heart thy
with purpose.
all diligence, for ou of it are the issues of life." If a man's heart is set on high things, conduct conforms. A man with a bad habit of life who
to
man to
[April 17, 1909.
COMPLIMENTARY DINNER TO DR.
WILDER.
Dr. A. P. Wilder, the American Consul General, at Hongkong who is going on furlough was entertained by leading members of the Chinese community to a complimentary dinner at the Chinese Club on Friday. Mr. Fuller, the Vice-Consul,
WBS also Ek guest. Mr. Lau Chu Pak presided over a large gathering, and in proposing the toast of the evening said.- Gentlemen, as you are all aware, the occasion which calls us together here this evening is to and to bid him farewell on the eve of his pay our respect to a gentleman who deserves it, departure for home on a well-earned holiday. That gentleman is no other than the widely popular and highly esteemed Consul-General for the United States, Dr. Wilder. I am exceedingly glad that, in the midst of his busy preparations, he has been able to find leisure to favour us with his genial company, thus affording us an opport unity of giving vent to our own admiration for his many excellent qualities, and to the apprecia- tion of our compatriots of his many kind acts, both in his official capacity as the representative of a powerful nation and in his private capacity as a friend. In customs and habits, it is true, the East differs from the West in a great many ways, but in feelings, I think you will all admit there is, if not an exact, a very close similarity. The Chinese know as well as their Western brothers, who deserve respect and honour and what to be grateful for. In our distinguished guest, our compatriots who have business connections with his country have not only a fair-minded official to deal with, but also a sympathetic friend, who is ready to assist in every way he can. Who knowing him well has not a good word to say in his praise? During the years he has spent goes out of this hall with good intentions will amongst us, he has, by his affability, polite- find that, unless some power above his own
ness and impartiality, won the good-will and antrates him; he is very weak. Nobler ends esteem of all those who have been brought into must be substituted for lower; where there contact with him. To win the good-will of is an appetite for drink there must be a
one's fellow-creatures by purely personal merits vision of freedom where impurity reigns, is, I should say, as great an achievement in there must be substituted a hunger for right-one's life as the acquirement of fame and honour eousness. Men have long found in prayer and by heroic deeds. Particularly in his own home. communion with God, and in the inspiration land, it is the gaining of the people's good-will that Jesus brings into the life, the helps that that has made many great men greater. Our tide over crises and upbuild life and characters. guest has that capability. As a scholar, he It is inspiring to observe the error-breaking is learned and accomplished; as an official mission of Christian truth. lavery has given he is well-informed, just and dignified; as a way before it, and now the stronghold of alcohol debater he is eloquent and resourceful, and as a is being attacked, both as old as the race. Christ-private individual, he is kind, honest and ianity is more than a scheme of individual charitable: Fortunate indeed is the country salvation; it is a means of the redemption of a
which possesses a servant of his abilities. It world. I know nothing more important for need never fear that, in his hands, its interests
to believe than that truth a young man
will suffer either politically or commercially. must prevail and the evil go down. You can
He is going away from us now and may not study this in the history of nations and come back again. We all, of course, sincerely in individual lives. To believe that regret that we shall very soon lose sight of his shifty ways secure, success is inevitably to fail in familiar figure moving energetically amongst any calling worth striving for. There is in
us, but when We reflect that his absence wrong-doing a germ of decay that, unfailingly from us means real happiness to his own kith eventually wrecks the whole fabric. On the and kin, longing to embrace him, and possible other hand, things wholesome, pure, right, come promotion to a higher sphere in the official to their own. though the mills grind slowly. I circles of his country, for which, by his great recall being in New York at a very large talents, he is so well qualified, we would rather gathering of monied men some 60 of rejoice in the success which is awaiting him the kings of finance. It was a time when the than regret his departure from our midst. great insurance companies were in their Gentlemen, I call upon you all to cordially join zenith of success, boastful, oppressive, arrogant. me in drinking to his and the health of his The millions poured into their coffers so easily family in wishing them long life and prosperity. that discretion was thrown to the winds; extra- We wish him "bon voyage " and may he, on vagance was the rule; magnificent banquets, arrival, find his folks all in the best of health private trains, and luxury were the order of the and his country-men with out-stretched hands day. The movements of national finance hinged ready to welcome him to a higher seat of honour. on the will of the insurance companies, and a few (Applause.) inen controlled. Everyone felt there was DR. WILDER, in responding, thanked his rottenness in the system, but the grip of the hosts for the hearty manner in which they had few was so powerful, the policy-holder was so
received the toast. When he first arrived in helpless, that there seemed no redress. But the Hongkong he was not well acquainted with the thing was wrong; it had to go down,-it is Chinese, but after a short stay here he formed in the nature of evil to ripen and decay. And
a good opinion of them. A great Chinese sage lo, within six months, ore clear-visioned, honest said that all within the four seas were, or ought man, country-bred, trained in deep, spiritual to be, brothers, and after his three years so- things at the knee of an insignificant Baptist journ here he believed that we were all brethren. preacher's wife, struck a blow at the corrupt. After eulogising Mr. Fuller who has just passed system, laid the iniquity bare and sent a dozena Government examination with credit, Consul uncrowned kings of finance to suicide, prison or obscurity. Marvellous, this law of right coming to its own; a noble inheritance has the young man who believes in it with his heart and shapes his life and thought in that faith.
Mr. Holyoak presided over a large attendance which included H. E. the Governor.
Wilder spoke of the University movement. It was all very well, he said, for Chinese to wor ship at the ancestral temples, and to expend large sums of money on them, but they should also think of their sons, and give them the best education they possibly could. He concluded an eloquent address by stating that
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