FATHER HAYS IN LEICESTER.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13739, 21 May 1910, Page 12

FATHER HAYS IN LEICESTER.

Thr Rev. Father Hays, the president of the World's Cetholic Temperance Crusado of the Cross, was thc special preacher on Good Friday morning at St. Peters K.C. Church Leicester. A ißrge and interested congregation Msr-mMed to h<-ar this energetic Temperance leader and philant-ro-pist. who haa twice gravelled around tn« world, and whose work is so well and favourably known even beyond the limits of his own communion.

"IS ENGLAND CHRISTIAN?" In the course of <i stirring and eloquont sermon, Father Hays observed that it wne natural that men (should commemorate the triumphs and achievements of national heroes, but. Christ was the only personality in human history, wheso ignominious death the whole world had commemorated with a common sorrow- for nineteen eenturiee. The Cross on Calvary on -which Ho died became the Throne from which He ruled tho world. He hequeathed to nations a peculiar civilisation, and to individuals a new ideal. Proceeding, the preacher asked, "Is England Christian or Pagan?" Let them look at the mind end heart of England. "What were its chief characteristics, its dominant principles, its laws, its aims, its aspirations? Those who camo in daily contact with the pulse of the people on the public platform, in the market, on 'Change, in the factory" and workshop could discern from even casual observation tha,t the great masses of the working classes and. large sections of the middle and upper classes had drifted outside the pale of practical Christianity. They had no King bnt Cfcsar. The literature of the country, its legislation, its commerce, its educational system, its amusements, its every-day life, all moro and moxo ignored the principles of Christianity, and expressed a non-Christian view of life. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF TfILK TiJVLBS. Faith in God and in His eternal laws, righteousness and zeal for His glory, in the policy and laws of the nation, respect for conscience in the determination in natural issues, alertness to the presence «of tho Unseen, and oonsciousnes* of a supernatural-destiny; these had not now the place they once held in the thought and mind and life or the nation. The multitude, passing its mortal days in the midst of the din and whirl of profane, and sinful pursuits, were slaves to that burning, insatiable thirst for pleasure and love of ease and self-indulgence, and to that hist for money and power which brought in their, train miseries and meanness, and cowardice. Among tho toilers there wae an organised conspiracy against every restraint and impatience under every authority. The deliberate murder of thi , . unborn, as by the sensational fall of the birth rate, and the almming prevalence of intemperance and immorality, which, like a black death, infested every section of the community, were a menace to these moral, social, and political liberties of the people, which, in Western civilisation, were the postulates of a healthy national life. No imagination could picture and no human talent could adequately describe the widespread ravages and tho far-reaching ruin caused by

ENGLAND'S NATIONAL SIN of intemperance. It was the most potent factor in the. social, mental, and moral degeneracy of the race. In all it j fierceness and all its foulness this terrible curse, of drink passed along tlio line of posterity to the second and third generation. Was it any wonder that strangers visiting England from Japan and from Australia and seeing for the first time; the deep degradation, tho ghastly squalor, and the hideous demoralisation of the slums of London, Glasgow, and Liverpool should express their utter bewilderment that such a state of things was permitt-kefy to exist in the very heart of.an Empire which boasted of its civilisation and its Christianity? Passing strange it was that the homes of the poor, tho interests and welfare of the toilers, and the very lives of tho people should all be sacrificed at the altar of greed and ambition and in the interests of a great drink combine, whose prosperity depended on the degradation and demcralisation of those who should be useful citizens and practical Christians. The truth was that England was gradually ceasing to be Christian, and was drifting into modern Paganism. .