RELIGIOUS WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 47, 24 February 1923, Page 18

RELIGIOUS WORLD.

PRESENT-DAY OUTLOOK,

.i 'ontributed.j REAL LIFE. **. l:o is not out for real life, seek it in whatever way he may." asked the Rev. i . 11. Olds, 8.A., in a sermon at -''. John's Methodist Church, Ponsonhy. Ijjs i,■_. w:>s. -Lay Hold on the Life that is Life Indeed" (I. Timothy I. 10)----let. said Mr. ('lds, multitudes fail actually !•• "lay hold" upon it, and Paul, in exposing one of the commonest fallacies rcgardinu' ihe quest —confidence in riches _as.er!-. that only in Cod is real life to be found. Live according to Cod's pian and you shall live indeed! Many imagine that to do this we must forfeit material and physical delight--. Paul emphatically asserts the contrary. Cod has "given us richly all things to enjoy." Self denial and cross-hearing arc involved. But even the lowest forms of pleasure exact their price, and then leave the soul unsatisfied. Man "spend their money for what is not bread, and their labour for what does not satisfy." Real life would involve no cross had not sin depraved our tastes and perverted our jud'-ients. Cod would have us aim not a< personal happiness but at character. Henco the common notion that religion robs a man of happiness. If that were Cod's purpose He could not have done better than lo have urged us to make happiness our aim. For the surest way •., i.iiss the enjoyment of life is to aim at ::. The mure eagerly one seeks it the more tantalising!} it eludes his grasp, while time relentlessly carries him bevord the sphere of his quest. Earth's toys grow dim, it glories pass away. < hrist's paradox is verified in experience. "Whosoever will save bis life shall lose it." Hut life on C. d's plan means ■present as well as future enrichment. I If the ultimate reward of character none ••an doubt, but in this life characterbuilding appears irksome and difficult. In reality it yields delight '.'-11 along the way. He who is "rich in (rood works" i- never thereby impoverished. Rather he verities Christ's words, "It is mure ;,',.5.-e,-i to give than to receive.'' To all such conceptions the thoughtful mind gives ready assent. The noblest philosophers of all nsres have empha-s'-e-l them. The Christian's philosophy Paul set forth has this distinctive feature—it exposes the s'm that warps the judgment, paralyses the nobler motives an.l enslaves the will: and it proclaims a divine Saviour. Cod's plan ensures real life because it involves the renunciation and pardon of sin and the companinnship of Cod's Son as Redeemer; and Friend. NOW OK NEVER. Christianity must win the world, and win it sunn, or the world is lost, said lir. Orchard, preaching at King's Weigh Hou.sc. It is no longer a question of disturbing ancient religions by thrusting upon them a different and alien faith. The old religions stand condemned; they cannot survive. Tbe ancient faiths of Japan have almost entirely disappeared. Among the cultured it, is agnosticism which prevails, and, in spite of many promising factors in China, there is at present an atheisti,. propaganda by no means to be despised. '.Ye may discuss amongst ourselves whether it makes much actual difference whether a man is a believer or an atheist. That is because we are the most muddle-headed people that ever trod the globe. We swarm with inconsistencies. It is said that a Christian is one who believes there is a God and acts as if there were not. and an atlic'. _ is a man who does not believe there is a Cod and acts as if there were. But even the most sceptical amongst us might halt when he considers what a picture the Eastern world is going to present in a hundred years' time if it | has no religion. I GROWTH OF RELIGIOUS IDEAS. A lecture delivered by Professor Paul .Sabatier before the " University of Strasbourg, on "Religious History and ihe Place ii should take at Each Degree, in Public Instruction," is published in French by the T.'nion pour la Y'erite, Paris, says the. "Christian World." M. I .sabatier urges the need and the value I of making children familiar with the growth of religious ideas and the parti played by such ideas, not from the church and dogmatic standpoint, but as the most important element in the cut-1 tural development of humanity. The instruction should lie scientific, sympathetic rather than critical, without bias. "Religious history is alone capable of showing at what a formidable price humanity has had to purchase its slightest progress," he says. "Among the finest victories of Christianity there i. one. which is too often forgotten because we are so habituated to it: that it has created an elite which has an instinctive horror of the magic wand and sorcery. The temptation of truth acquired without effort, the gate of paradise opening magisally before a gesture or a cabalistic word, is too strong at. the present hour, not to cause many minds to waver. It prowls round the best of us. Too many are ready to pour out to the crowd, facile in its entliusiasm, philtres which have never ceased to deceive them through the ages, j and ever to seduce it anew." \