MORALS OF TO-DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 207, 1 September 1932, Page 11

MORALS OF TO-DAY.

WOMEN'S RESPONSIBILITY. APPEAL BY ARCHBISHOP. "The noblest thing in God's creation is a good woman," declared Archbishop Averill in an address at a special service for women at St. Mary's Cathedral yesterday afternoon. The eervice was held in connection with the week's campaign for Christian witness. After referring to the great danger arising from the tendency of a section of women, and particularly a certain section of young women, to regard the Christian ideal and ethic as capable of being flung aside and labelled as oldfashioned, the Archbishop said that the world had what it would call its code of morals. That consisted of doing what one liked so long as one did not get found out. Society also had its code, which consisted largely in doing what one liked as long ae one did not transgress the canons of worldly respectability or break that sacred slogan, "It's not done." Where did loyalty to Jesus or activity in doing God's "will come in there ? If woman lost her high estate the world would lose all moral restraint and would revert to the ethics of the jungle. A nation's moral standard could never rise higher than ite women, and nowadays, when everything was challenged, it behoved women to tak'e Tip a very definite stand for the righteousness which exalted a nation. Immorality was a sin against God and a sin against society. "In spite of the modern attempts to eeca-pe the very ugly word 'sin , and to water down man's indebtedness to God," said the Archbishop, "we are bound to stand beside God whether society likes it or not. Slavery to society or to a fashion is a tyranny and it is the terrible feebleness of Christian witness which is lowering the moral standard of the world to-day." Continuing, the Archbishop asked whether the sex-&aturated novel and the sex-suggestive cinema or play was the outcome of the spirit of the age or the cause of it. Personally he thought it was largely the outcome of it. If no voice was raised against moral drift silence was often accepted ae acquiescence. The challenge of its standards bv hi<*h-principled and courageous women was what the world needed to-day. "Narrow-minded criticism was worse than useless, but the silence of a good woman was tantamount to the defeat of Christ s standards by those of the world. The world said that Christ's ideals were not workable in these days, but if such a philosophy were exploited the inevitable result wo'uld be a decay of the world's moral standard. In conclusion, Archbishop Averill urged women to . help the world, by simple j loyalty to .Christ and by courage and fearlessness in the face of all opposition.