Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. THURSDAY, JUNE 3, 1909.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXIX, Issue 7812, 3 June 1909, Page 2

Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. THURSDAY, JUNE 3, 1909.

Much nonsense is talkThe ed and written off Service and on about the of little use which the The .Church. "Church is or has been to the world. But those who speak m this way of the Church m regard to the past cannot know history, or if they know it, they know it only as a series of chronicles, and cannot have an understanding grasp of its lessons. Something similar might b<? said with respect to the present, and if the Church is not now as effectual as she might be, the blame rests largely with the neople themselves ; some of whom are too superficial to see, and others too selfish to approve, what she does m justification and m maintenance of her character as the promoter of spiritual health m the race, and as the champion of justice throughout society, and as between man and man. In Dunedin the other evening, the Rev. W. Slade, as President of the Council of Churches, said some true and well-timed things m this connection. He showed that from first to last Christianity has stood for the immortality of the individual soul, and for the value of the individual -man even m the world's secular social life. "There was (said Mr Slade) a time when the Papacy saved the world. Feudalism lasted some time, but again the worth of the individual asserted itself and slew feudalism. The Charter of John was the expiring note of the caste m England. Individualism again bore forcibly upon modern slavery when the Church, after a temporary aberration, recognised its ivrorig. In the revival of the eighteenth century she altogether abolished the slave trade. Once more, he said, look at the influence of the Christian dogma of individual value m the modern industrial system. With the growth of industrialism and the factory system Capital became the modern tyrant and Labour was ground xinder its heel. But again the importance of the individual stirred the minds of reformers, with the result that then began a stream of remedial measures. The influence of' Christianity was being felt by the advocates of war, and war would ultimately receive its death-blow from Christian individualism. There was no movement to-day that aimed at ameliorating the evils attendant upon the industrial system of the world which did not owe its origin to the teachings of the Christian dogma. That was one answer to the blatant .foolishness of those who condemned Christianity on the ground of its uselessriess to the mass of mankind. The millennium might be far away, but it was from the Christian religion that it would come, because it was from the Christian religion that we received those dogmas which helped man to discover God and taught him his own inestimable value as ,God's co-worker, and this induced him to do to his neighbour what he would have the neighbour do to him." The justice of these observations shows that the Church is still, m the main, true to her trust; and if men were less flippantly superficial and less sordidly selfish, and had more insight and more sympathy with respect to the Church, it would be better for, the harvest of the Church's labours, for themselves and the world.