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The Spike: or, Victoria University College Review, June 1929

An Appeal

page 42

An Appeal

Dear Fellow-Student (per Spike),—

Do not be in such a hurry to get off to your swat to-night. Stop and think with me for a while. Last night you met with a crowd of others in the common-room to discuss why so-and-so was off his game last Saturday. Why did you want to talk it over with the other fellows? You wished to make your mind clear on the point in question and to improve your knowledge of the game. Does it never occur to you that you are playing the game of life every day and every hour of the day, and that it would pay you to meet your fellows to discuss its problems? You play games and you do your level best to improve in them. Have you ever given a thought to the matter of how you are going to get the best out of your life in the same way that you get the best out of your sports?

Perhaps you do not play games. Then, remember that your life was intended not as a routine of "swat," but as an opportunity for you to take your place in society and so benefit your fellows. As a University student you are given more than average facilities to learn. But, surely, you are not given this added opportunity merely so that you can learn the Institutes of Justinian. It is rather to learn how to make the best of that life of yours. Book-study, you know, is only one of many means to that end. You profess to be a law student; then you should know the Institutes of Justinian. If you profess to be a Christian, surely an understanding of what Christianity is, what it is for. what good it is to you, and how you can use it to advantage in your work, your study, and your home and student life must be a question vitally interesting to you.

Again I appeal to you to stop and think. Question yourself a little. Why do I call myself a Christian? Have I any right to do so? What do I mean when I say that I am a Christian? If you cannot answer yourself, then come along with your fellow students in the Students' Christian Union and let us talk it over together. We, too, are in the dark on many points, and we would like to know what you think. Perhaps, too. we may, by friendly discussion, help you to solve some of your own little problems.

Think of the time that you waste every day. You must be able to spare one hour out of the one hundred and sixty-eight that go to make up a week. Come along to one of the Christian Union's weekly circles. You will find that the time spent will repay you two or three times over. Every one, you know, has some principles that guide him in his every action in life. Come along and discuss them with young men and women of your own age and you will be taking a step towards one of the highest goals of man expressed in the words of ancients as the command to "Know thyself."—I am, etc..

Fellow-Student.

(Leave a note in the rack for the Secretary, or see one of the Committee for further particulars of the activities of the S.C. Union.)