CHURCH AND EMPIRE.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18545, 21 November 1925, Page 18

CHURCH AND EMPIRE.

THE SPIRITUAL POWERHOUSE. IMPRESSIONS OF TOUR. ("OX OUR OWH COKMSPOKBXHT.) LONDON, October 9. In a second sermon, preached in Bristol Cathedral on Sunday, Dr. E. A. Burroughs, Dean of Bristol and Bishopdesignate of Bipon, gave further impressions left upon his mind as the outcome of his recent Empire tour. He-Outlined the forces at work in the building up of the British Empire, and said he came home a more ardent Imperialist than ever, if by Imperialism was meant belief in the historic mis- j sion of o'tir Empire and the importance to mankind of the ideal symbolised by 1 its flag; but with a new anxiety about present-day developments, as bearing on that mission, and a new sense of the responsibility resting upon all guardians of the best British tradition at Home, and not least upon the Church of England. "It is not'so mueh that' our forefathers went out with the name of God upon their lips," said Dr. Burroughs. "It. is rather that they went with a real, if sometimes rudimentary fear of God in their hearts. I must make much of what tho Empire owes directly to actual Christian missionary work. New Zealand, for instance, is ours today, simply because of the pioneer work of Church of England missionaries; and so is a gTeat part of our East and Central African possessions. But I am thinking more of the indirect efforts, the result not of deliberate evangelisation—the work of the CSiureh— but of the line almost unconsciously taken by pioneers and early Empire-bnilders. These men, in tho England of their day, were brought up in the faith and fear of God, and emerged, not necessarily '' religious'' men, but men with a solidity of character and conviction which is far rarer in those we are sending out to-day. I claim that a great part of our suecess in winning ' the heritage of the heathen' is due to what God showed our ancestors of 'the power of His "works.' Secular Education. "Are we in the present keeping up the tradition of the past, the tradition which has made our Empire? and what is to happen to th§ human future if we fail? Frankly, the outlook is in many ways disquieting. .... The only hope lies in a quickening of the spiritual instinct of the British people, and to that end we need (I think), especially a new spiritual initiative and gift of leadership in the English Mother Church. The materialism of Australia and New Zealand to-day is not, like that of America, a strenuous moneymaking force. Pleasure, rather than Mammon, is the popular d«ity: and pleasure largely in the peculiarly British guise of so-called 'sport,' which, at a certain point of its advance, invariably becomes all that an. Englishman means by 'unsporting.' .... All this mania is fed by high wages and a climate which lends itself to open-air life throughout the year; and the same conditions favour constant indulgence iu other forms of pleasure-seeking. . , . Add to this that Sunday is the picnic festival par excellence, and that it takes an unusual degree of religious conviction to bring youger folk, at any rate, to church at all —especially where they are the products of State education—and you will see how difficult spiritual conditions are, fev'en if the Church were as strong as it needs to be. The Empire that Counts. "It is in relation to what I have-, already said about the British tradition, and its importance for the human future to-day, that the seriousness • of these symptoms must be judged. Ido not say that this materialism iu universal or all-conquering. On the contrary, religious life, at least Australia, is in some places eminently vigorous; and the strength of our own Church, as revealed at the Melbourne Congress, was a surprise as well as a delight to see. But the situation as between the Church and the world out there is one whieh concerns the whole British Empire, and, above all, the whole Anglican Communion; and tlat is why I am trying to bring it home to you. As an Englishman who had lived two years in New Zealand put it to me, 'England is done: it's the Empire that counts to-day.' There is a lot of truth in that. And, if so, there is truth no less in the claim that, instead of just 'the Church of England,' we must think and live in terms of the "Anglican Communion as a whole. It is we who are largely responsible for the spiritual problems and dangers of the new lands overseas. It is our dnty to be the spiritual power-house of the Empire; to keep all parts of it in mind of its historic, providential misson, and, by any form of help which we can send, to make it easier for the daughter nations to be 'not disobedient to the heavenly vision' which is the' true inspiration and consecration of. the British Empire as a whole."'