"AGE OF CONFUSION."

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 91, 18 April 1928, Page 8

"AGE OF CONFUSION."

Society,

RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.

YOUNG PEOPLE PERPLEXED.

BISHOP SPROTT's VIEWS.

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, this day,

"We are passing through an age of much greater contusion than the age of the Reformation," declared Bishop Sprott when addressing the annual conference of the Church of England Men's

"The present upheaval, confusion and chaos in religion, in politics, and in social life is world-wide," said his Lordship. "In such times there is a great pulling away from the observance of religion, simply because the people do not know where they are. So was it at the Reformation period, and laws were passed—laws which remained on the Statute Book of England until the tenth year of the reign of Queen Victoria—imposing a penalty of a fine or imprisonment on everybody who did not go to church. ... I am just pointing this out to show you that we are not passing through something we have never heard of before. We have to remember the tremendous revival that took place after this period and the tremendous extension of missionary work that followed.

"The present experience is simply due to the fact that the people do not know where they are, especially the young people. Some of the older Christian people may have had such a deep religious experience of their own that all the scientific and other movements have had no effect on them at all. They know. That is always the result of long experience. But the younger people have had no such experience and the result is that they are tossed about hither and thither. In addition, we know that there has been a tendency since the war for the young people to think that our institutions have proved their inefficiency and are ready to vanish away. We may hope that better times will come. lam not very sure that I will live to see those better times, for it took 128 years to make a recovery during the Reformation period. In the meantime, we have got to hold the fort and feel that better days are coming, even if some of us will not live to see them. Someone has said that human nature is incorrigibly religious, and if that be so it will sooner or later reassert itself once more."