MOTHERS' DUTY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 283, 30 November 1933, Page 12

MOTHERS' DUTY.

PRINCIPLES, NOT FASHION. "There is a conflict between fashion and principle. Are we going to follow a mere change in fashion, or are we going to follow God's will? If we are going to follow God's will we need constantly to renew devotion to God and to the principles He has enunciated," said Archbishop Averill, in addressing the large gathering of the Auckland Mothers.' Union in St. Mary's Cathedral yesterday- afternoon. The great' world-wide society of the Mothers' Union was calling all her members to renewal, which meant to restore ' freshness, affection and vigour to their principles and beliefs, said the Archbishop. The Mothers' Union stood for the principles of God and not the changing fashions of the world. The Mothers' Union also stood for the supremacy of God's moral word, and uncompromisingly- against attempts on the part of the world to break down the standards that Christ had set up. It •stood for Christian morality and selfcontrol in opposition to all forms of licence and for the consecration of sex in a lifelong union between man and woman. The world was challenging the Church and the very foundations of morality. The Archbishop proceeded to denounce the tone of much of modern literature, a considerable part of which, alas! he said, was written by women. It sought to degrade the life of rational and spiritual beings to the level Of animals. It contained an utterly perverted idea of what was natural to man and woman made in the image of God, and spoke' of self-expression in terms of sexexpression as the normal life of human beings. He considered the writings of Bertrand Russell, for instance, as a gross libel upon womanhood and calculated to poison the lives of the young and thoughtless.

"Sex licence is perhaps tlio most degrading thing in the world, 111 spite of the false glamour which many modern writers, novelists, and film producers throw around it," said his Grace. "It has a very bad effect upon the moral and spiritual nature, and is responsible for the breaking-up of happy home life and for the despair and misery of parents. It is responsible, also, for the miserable exhibition of our divorce , courts and for many of the inmates of our mental asylums. Governments which are constantly pandering to a debased public opinion 011 moral questions, which are prepared to be constantly extending the causes for divorce, and which are unwilling to make the sale of contraceptives to boys and girls an indictable offence, are acting not only ill opposition to the will of God, but also in direct opposition to the highest welfare of the country which they are supposed to serve." ,

Such a challenge to Christian faith, continued the Archbishop, must be met by a counter-challenge. There should not be .an apology for a religion, but witness to it before the eyes of the world. They had come to the parting of the ways, and mothers must be prepared to take up their stand against the challenge. "Renewal is much deeper than lip service," he concluded. "It is a call to each individual to review his or her whole attitude of life, and to pray for the illuminating and converting life of the Holy Spirit to reveal what is amiss in liis or her devotion to the truth, and what is wanted in his or her own particular witness."