RELIGIOUS WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 88, 15 April 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

RELIGIOUS WORLD.

PRESENT-DAY OUTLOOK.

THOUGHTS FOR EASTERTIDE.

WHAT MANKIND ■ NEEDS.

Of the following two messages, appropriate to this Eastertide, the first is taken from an address by a distinguished Protestant minister, Dr. R. F. Horton, of London. The second is taken from the leading article in the April number of the Catholic organ " The Month." THE ALL-SUFFICIENT CREED. "The deepest thought of the world to-day is calling for Jesus. You can hear it in many ways. You find it wherever you go. There is something which is going on in the world which is intrinsically calling for Jesus. It is felt that everything else has failed. It is dawning on people everywhere that Christianity has been misunderstood. Christianity has been thought to be a great system, a great Church, a great creed. People are beginning to see that that is not Christianity. Christianity is Jesus, and it is beginning to be seen that Jesus is accessible. He is the only One Who is close at hand. You can go straight to Jesus. The Church is very important, but it does not come first. It comes in when people have come to Josus. The creed was an afterthought. 'I believe in Jesus' is an all-sufficient creed. To believe in Jesus is to believe in everything. He opens the eyes of the soul, and the soul begins to see things which it never saw before. In Jesus you see what the soul is and you see what God is, and the two come together." WORLD'S SUPREME NEED. To-day, the supreme need .of the world is leadership. When, as now, all human leadership is suspect, when men whisper of the self-seeking motives of this national leader or that, the example of Christ's leadership is opportune for comparison. The world now seeks peace—not merely the peace that is a reprieve from the warring of nations, but the peace that brings tranquillity to the individual heart. The World or its present leaders cannot give that peace, because the world has nothing to satisfy the longing of men and their unquenchable demand for happiness. Yet, in human leadership many men hope to find peace, with the result that they are running round in circles, largely because they have no authoritative guidance in first principles, and, consequently, no fixed standards of conduct. •We do need to go back to past centuries for material to which to apply the test of the sufficiency of the two great precepts of the New Law, as given us by the Saviour of mankind. There is 110 present injustice, no individual, national, or international difficulty or distress, which could not have been avoided, or which cannot now be remedied, if the human will be applied to the carrying out of the doctrines taught by Christ. At this time, when the sacred drama of the Passion and Death of Our Lord is once more being unfolded, we are reminded in a striking manner of His leadership. He came to restore the friendship between man and God, and, as a natural corollary, peace between 7iian and man. He gave tranquillity that comes from the-remission-of sins and through reconciliation with God. When He healed, He said: "Go in peace!" When He cured, He forgave; when He. forgave, He made the sinner His own friend. He brought a new sense of happiness and' security to every creature who received Him.« St. John tells us that to His followers Christ said. "These things I have spoken to you that in Me you may have peace." Where else may wo find true peace to-day? In Moscow, in Paris, in Geneva? In international treaties' from which is excluded Christ, Whose Name shall be called "the Prince of Peace" ? Christ did not show His leadership merely in words; by His actions He proved its sincerity. There could be no hatred, no enmity, in His human heart, since in His human as in His divine nature He was conformable to the eternal law of love. Even when He was scorned, mocked, condemned, and crucified by those He came to save He was at peace and forgave them. So that men might know His all-embracing love for them, He suffered cruelly with patience and humility. ' ' " " :/ There is no mistaking the quality of a leadership that endures even, to death for the followers of its gospel. To ensure that all men might know the Truth that makes them free, Christ hung upon the Cross so that, being lifted up, He might draw all men to Himself. His leadership did not end there. It endures. Tt awaits the recpgnition of the world, before the world can be saved anew; for itself it .cannot save. It must look into the teachings of Christ and follow them. He died that men might live. And He rose again- to live that men might not die.