Religion's Gold Standard

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 60, 12 March 1938, Page 14 (Supplement)

Religion's Gold Standard

IT was in a suburban train that a chance conversation sprang up between myself and one who turned out to be a graduate of Oxford and a prominent Australian journalist. Spying my collar reversed, the unknown fellow traveller dropped his morning paper into his lap and made some comment about the weather. After this he quickly drifted on to world affairs, in an all-too-apparent effort to draw me out. Like tV snail, I was a little cautious ut being drawn out. Having had a lively, i.lthough bj me a somewhat r ded conversation for about 20 mini es, we . rrjved at our destination. Walk',: down the platform, the er, after having betrayed his identity, made this surprising remark: 'Do you know that you parsons are the biggest lot intellectual shulllers in the world?" "Tl.ut is rather extravagant," I replied, "worthy of some cheap sensationalist, but hardly worthy of a man of your undoubted education." He laughed, shook hands warmly, and vail-

ished into the crowd. I went away wi'.'.i Uiat statement • .ewing in my mind, ai.il lias been gently simmering there e t ~-e. •"Intellectual sliufliers." Always afraid to be wholly and entirely c — ']v Ever ready to qualify our smallest remarks upon even the most h less topics. Protruding from our shells with snail-like caution, and then drawing ba at the first sign of attack. 'S, there was some truth in the stranger's remark, but had he included everybody under that head, instead of out one small section of the community, he would have been more correct. Intellectual reserve and undue mental caution keeps most of us from a free and frank revealing of ourselves to our friends. The most helpful contribution that t'. roups have made to Christian thought and conduct has been the creation of an atmosphere in which we can the better share 60me of these really ■ ;al thoughts which hitherto we have so studiously withheld from circulation. In tl.e field of economics the mere hoarding i.f money is greatly to be discouraged. Withholding it from circulation can very soon cripple the most progressive community. In all the superficial criticism of modern banki: g tl. ■ fact remains that the banks fulfil a in . t n T — .irv social function — a function which tliev are far better

Specially written for Week-end Pictorial

— by — The Rev. C. W. CHANDLER

qualified to perform than any of their i'ii! 1,-.; '.'.-tic, and oftentimes ill-informed £•! :' : cs. Nevertheless, we hoard our thoughts. On matters of religion in particular there is a most unhealthy reticence. With , many of us it is acknowledged to be the most important subject in life, a yd yet it is quite often the subject upon which we have the least to say. In a spiritual sense we have literally gone off the gold standard. Religious topics seldom form the subject matter of general conversation. This is not because the subject is highly controversial, because we are ready enough to discuss polities, but rather because our minds all too seldom are attuned to such sublimity. Through having gone into a shop in Rockhampton, Queensland, and greeted ; the proprietor (who was a Greek) with the words "Christ is Risen," I was at once showered with hospitality. A new light shone in his eyes when he heard, far away from his native land, a friendly salutation couched in religious terms, such as he had seldom if ever heard in the land of his adoption. It was only yesterday when a man drove up to the vicarage in an expensive coupe and took a dozen decisive ste[>s up to the front door, where, having heard him approaching, 1 awaited his arrival. 1 had never seen him before in my life, lie might have been a movie star or a company promoter, judging by his appearance, but he turned out to be an advertising man. He had come to make some pertinent inquiries about religious education. Five minutes had not elapsed before he was talking about the old Scottish covenanting sort of religion with which he was surrounded during his boyhood days in Scotland, fie spoke of the freedom with which, even in that deeply religious atmosphere, he had been allowed, as a boy, to challenge every dogma, that was enunciated by his elders. He had won his way to the heart of religion by challenging the veracity of every statement which had been presented to him as eternal truth. "Religion to me is the deepest and most fascinating subject in life," he continued, "ami I want a similar interest to be developed in my boy, and it can only be developed in an atmosphere of absolute freedom from all mental restraint. ITe must air his doubts before

ever h© can hope to confess tne faith that is in him." From a chance visitor who, from outward appearances I could so easily have misjudged, this came as a great surprise. That man was on the gold standard. It was refreshing to hear him speak so feelingly but with such dignified restraint upon the subject which he considered the mo'it important in life. The very first axiom of successful salesmanship, whether in the selling of advertising space, refrigerators or vacuum cleaners, is to believe in the goods that are being handled. Our spiritual reticence often points to a lack of intensity in our beliefs, and the best cure for this is to air our doubts, and in the process come to real grips with religion.

As it is, we have debased the currency. We can talk about horses, and fashion, and bridge with much greater ease than we can talk about God and the soul. When occasionally we do return to the gold standard when in conversation with a friend, what a sense of exhilaration we experience in the exchange of these weightier tokens.

Small talk, like small change, can make a great rattle, but as we would not care to carry all our worldly wealth about with us in pennies and halfpence, neither should we be prepared to go about amongst our friends onty with a lot of intellectual small change. As dividends are earned only when money is "on change," so it is only in the exchange of the highest thoughts that interest accumulates, mental reserves are built up, and the working capital of a saving faith is increased. Therefore, through this lack in the exchange of religious thought, the currency has been debased, with the result that a sort of spiritual depression is being experienced. We are startled by the bellicose bombast of Fascist dictators, and anxiously await, and are ever ready to applaud, the arrival of the man who will denounce our modern faithlessness with all the zeal of an Old Testament prophet. Religious persecution, which is rampant in several countries to-day, together with the unheeding multitudes who throng the beaches, fill the theatres, inob the racecourse, and desert the churches, gives evidence to the fact that the world has gone off the gold standard. As, according to the more orthodox economist, the gold standard signifies national stability, so, in a far deeper sense and in a sense less open to doubt in any school of thought, the nation which forgets God, and in a mad lust for material wealth and power, goes off that religious gold standard (which has spelled stability and progress to many nations in the past) is hurtling towards a state of bankruptcy and oblivion.