Shawnigan Lake School - Yearbook (Shawnigan Lake, British Columbia Canada)

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p Chapel Notes The Rev. E. M. Willis was again in charge of Chapel Services throughout the year. During the winter — when the behaviour of our Island weather was so sadly out of character, and early morning driving was often extremely difficult — Mr. Willis never failed to be with us. We thank him for his untiring friendship for the School. Other preachers in Chapel were: the Head Master; the Bishop of the Diocese, who officiated at the annual Memorial Service and at the Service of Confirmation; the recently retired Head Master of Rugby School, England, who gave an inspir- ing address emphasizing the pre-eminent place that Christian faith and worship must have in a life that is complete; the Rev. Canon Michael Coleman, whose continued association with the School is so greatly valued; the Rev. George Bidd le, Rector of St. John ' s, Victoria; and the Rev. James Martin, who preached the Leaving Day Sermon. The Chapel Choir, after much hard work, has proved itself capable of effectively performing service music of considerable difficulty. Study of Handel ' s Messiah has begun, in preparation for a joint performance with a large choral group in Victoria. The sermon by the Very Reverend Dean Spencer Elliott at the Leaving Day Service in June, 1948, was of such interest that we decided to print it in its entirety in this issue. Sermon by Dr. Spencer H. Elliott It is commonplace to say that we live in a materialistic age. Research has led to discoveries and inventions in the physical sciences. Human emotions School Magazine Page 5

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School Notes In November Mr. Hugh Lyon, late Head Master of Rugby, spent a week end at the School and gave a most delightful and inspiring address in the Chapel on Sunday morning. A copy of Almae Matres by Mr. F. B. Malim is an interesting and delightfully written account of the English schools at which he has been Head Master, and in the chapter on Canada he has written a very interesting account of this school. Our grateful thanks to Mrs. Colin Graham for her gift of a school deben- ture, also to Mrs. Ripley for her continued and practical interest both in the School and in Ripley ' s House. In January a delegation of twenty-five masters and boys went to Tacoma and enjoyed the hospitality of the Annie Wright Seminary at their annual Spring Dance. A very enjoyable trip as usual, as it must be with such a delightful hostess as Miss Ruth Jenkins. The after effects were visible for rather too long a period during the following week. The Pancake Greaze on Shrove Tuesday in 1948 was won by Milbrad, Form VII, and in 1949 won by Johnson for the Upper Fifth. On the 21st of May the whole school went to Victoria and spent an ex- tremely good time at the Crescent Shows as guests of Mr. Meyerhoff. There is a rumour that as many as eighteen hot-dogs were demolished by one of the smallest boys in the school. Major General Pearkes, V.C., gave the two schools an excellent address on Parliament . Moving pictures were presented every other week throughout the winter terms, and on May 19th the Moody Institute of Science presented the films God of Creation and God of the Atom . Visits by different groups were made to the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, a trip from Victoria to Maple Bay in the U.S. Submarine Caymen, to Duncan to see Hamlet and the Olympic Games, and a visit to the Provincial Legislature for which we have to thank Commander Beard. Page 4 Shawnigan Lake

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and desires have been ascribed to the working of the glands in the physical body. In the periods of disillusionment before and after the war, younger men and women have been tempted to despair of ideals and have directed their training towards realistic pursuits. We have to undertake a vast work of reconstruction and to rebuild a shattered world. For that task we must call on the best resources of applied science to meet problems of a most practical kind, requiring scientific knowledge and engineering skill. People must be given a chance to live. But also they must be allowed to know what they are living for. There must be some worthy purpose in life. It is not good enough to become so much absorbed in maintaining the means to live that we crowd out all thought of that which makes life worth living. Broadly speaking, the things that have to do with the means of living are visible and tangible, yet also perishable and temporary; while that which makes life worth living is in the realm of the invisible and the intangible, yet when we have found it, it is imperishable and eternal. The prayer in today ' s Collect is that we may so pass through things temporal that we finally lose not the things eternal. It is foolish to ignore or deny everything that cannnot be plotted on squared paper. In these days, when scientists, in the realm of the physical uni- verse, have led us on by a great leap to standards of measurement far beyond those of Euclid and Newton, no thinking man has any right to scoff at our Christian belief that behind and beyond this visible universe there is another state of being which even an Einstein cannot measure, — a state of being, not separate from that in which we exist, but cutting across and penetrating through that which we already know. Life begins to be worth something when we see the eternal, the spiritual, breaking through into this present state of being at every point, so that the material world becomes to us a sacrament of the heav- enly, revealing itself in the ordinary working day. We may approach the truth through the calculations of scientists, and also through thoughts and visions of great imaginative writers and poets, who give to common things a wondrous and mystical meaning, helping us to see beyond the transient and to find eternal values. The scientist seeks truth; the artist seeks beauty; and we find that truth and beauty are inextricably intertwined with each other and also with goodness. The moral basis of sound knowledge has been affirmed by writers as different from one another as Dr. Samuel Johnson, Diderot, Lessing, Shelley, Thomas Carlyle, and John Ruskin; while the great dramatists have shown how tragedy is the outcome of moral failure, and true comedy is the achievement of those relationships and associations of ideas and thoughts and emotions that are eternal and deathless. Somewhere along those lines is the attitude to life which our Saviour Him- self has taught us; a way of life that He will abundantly bless. It means living in the atmosphere of the eternal, seeking those unseen qualities which can never die, using the visible and temporal things, not as ends in themselves, but as symbols of the invisible and as means of spiritual blessing to the world. Page 6 Shawnigan Lake