RELIGIOUS WORLD

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 183, 1 August 1908, Page 12

RELIGIOUS WORLD

a. SERMON ON EMPIRE

The. Bishop of Auckland preached at Bt Paul's Gitbedral on Sunday, June i 4, on the we of Mie Pan-Anglican Congress to a large congregation, ffis text was from the 122 nd Psalm: "Because of the House, of the Lord our God, I will sce-k to do t-bee good." Bishop Neligau's sermon had special reference tn the Pan-Anglican Congress of the Anglican Communion, an assemblage of men and women of different raiva and colours from all parts of the world; not owing allegiance to Canterbury, yet linked to Canterbury. What did it all moan? What right h:'d they of the Anglican Communion to hold that Congress

at all? It \ras th-e greatest event, from the point of view of discussion, that Christendom had ever known or beard of. What did that Anglican Communion stand for? Wliy was it in America, in iN'ew Zealand, in Australia. and South Africa, in India? Why was it outside the Emprre, in Japan, on the Went Coast of Africa Why was it that wherever you went you found first of all that society, the Anglican Communion? What did it stand for? ?He found the answer on the lines laid down by the Psalmist in the words of his text: "Because of the Ibux' of the Lord cur Cod, I will seek to do UiPe pood."

"I venture to submit,' , said the Bishop, "that, except upon that principle of religion being the motivp force of our intercourse with nations, whether they be in the rphere of the British Empire or outside it, our nation as a race muit die out, and our Empire as an accomplishment must cease to exist. This is the, only lasting principle of Empire, and is the only bond whereby the British Empire can possibly be kept together—the bond of religion.

"We of the Anglican Communion stand for that House of God. Going out to a ymng nation, feeling its national life ■with all the vigour of youth, such as New Zealand; or to nations a little older, such a= Australia. Canada and the I'nited 'States—there we dare to go out and to say, 'It is because of what we believe this Anglican Communion can do and has done, for England, that we can come To you and say, "Wo will try to do thee good.'' Tn giving out this me-ssage the Anglican Church is proclaiming that, because her motive is love for the House of the Lord, she is able to go to every nation that she touches by her system of organisation, by her adherence to primitive practice and Catholic custom. She is able to give to every nation, young and old, that which I personally believe no other Christian body in the whole vorld can give, the opportunity for the freest, truest, purest, best nnd most stable expression of that nation's national life. That is at any rate what this English Church has done for England. - '

Bishop Neliftan proceeded to describe three great systems of colonisation in the pa^t—the Greek, thn Roman and the Spanish. The Greek system failed be-cau-e the prosperous colonies "learned that frightfully dangerous lesson that we of the British Empire are learning today, not thai religion is incredible, but iliat it is inconvenient and unnecessary." Luxury grew rampant, religion lost its hold., and ideils wont out of the national life. Ideals having gone, materialism, that ugly monster, eanic in their place. And because the Greek had lost his religion, the system of Greek colonies failed. The Roman system failed because there wa s no independence in it whatever and because all hope of per--iTri*«wr.ce was crushed under the iron heel of <lespoti-sm. The Spanish system, full of romance and great failed became i n pvpry rase its religion enslaved til,- national life. He failed to under- ■ stand how any system that necessitated obedience tn a centra! a-uthoriry at Rome could fail to have the result of enslaving tlu- national life. It could not be othe" Tvi.-P in a such a system. Pope Gregory :n tne 11th .-entury put forth the theory that the civil power was of the devil, and the spiritual power of the nation must wholly compass and bind the civil power ibe inevitable result of that was | that the national life must he so com- ! pressed that i a a little while, compara-' tively speaking, it was crushed altogether.

How different was the principle laid down by the unknown writer of P<alm 122 a principle whereby you could liberatr the "ml or municipal life, the national or Imperial life, give it full expression, ?nd endow it with permanence it was only through the House of God that this widespread British Empire could be kept together, and in God's time Teach at length that fulness of development when the day could come which cannot yet come but must come some■Wj. "When the nations and kingdoms ot This world shall all become the kingdoms oi our Lord." °