MORAL STANDARDS TO-DAY.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20623, 12 August 1932, Page 18

MORAL STANDARDS TO-DAY.

TO THE EDITOR O* THE PBESS. Sir,—Mr N. M. Bell appears to agree with your other correspondents, who questioned my expressed opinions on the above subject, in virtually admitting the decadence in the morals of to-day. I uin glad to find so much of honesty in this discussion. With Mr Bell's suggestion that the youth of today should 'throw themselves wholeheartedly into the crusade for world disarmament and world peace, no serious student of world politics would disagree; yet, even if armaments' were wiped out, and universal peace settled in the world like .a benediction from Heaven, unless the. individual members of the younger generation conformed to something like the old moral standards, tiie world would still be sodden with that gross materialism that has already robbed life of so much of its tfraee 'and poetry. Without high moral ideals man sinks, to near the level of the hearts that perish. - ' My other critic, "Fifty-Five," puzzles me. He admits the supreme value of Christian morals, but when T plead that an attempt should be made by the present generation to conform to them, and to restore the moral standards of Victorian years, he triumphantly resurrects Calvin and John Knox and asks me if I would have anyone in Christchurch act as they did when tliey held the powers of persecution and exercised them. Of course T would not; but, because these two zealots were cruel in their religious bigotry—as wns the manner of their times —and because they were Christian, their cruelty does not damn the Christian code of morals, fairly expressed in the Ten Commandments. My last critic, "Hope." does not add much to the discussion that calls for reply. He, too, admits the decn- j dence and attributes it to ignorance— j which is a moot point. I appeal to my commentators who have all admitted j the non-morality of the present generation, if it would not be better and more practical for them all to cease word-splitting and pin-pricking and set i about devising means for the cleansing by the Augean stable, which life has become with the removai of the old '

standards that held up high ideals before the eyes of youth.—Yours, etc., PLAIN LIVING AND HIGH THINKING. August 11th, 1932.

TO TH"E EDITOR OTT THE PEESS. Sir "With your permission I would like to reply to "Plain Living and High Thinking," as I have apparently convoyed rather a wrong impression of my morals as seen through older eyes. I have admitted that this is a pleasurelovino 1 age, but I also said that fundamentally the young folk of to-day are morally" sound. I also maintain that tho temptations that exist in this Georgian age are far more marked than they were in the Victorian era.' The youth of to-day have much more scope for pleasure, and have to withstand far more influences for evil. But the majority of the young men and women of to-day do discipline their minds to good,' even in the face of tho evils that confront them. It is tho extremists that seek the lowest levels, and you will find them in every age.

If the youth of to-day are to be brought back to church, let each minister go into his study and search the Scriptures and then preach and explain God's Book to the people. Instead of the husks, we shall truly receive the bread of life. Tho primrose-path led me to Arthur's Pass last Sunday. It was a beautiful day, amid the grandeur of God's creation. 1 felt glad to be amongst such happy people, clean in thought and deed —600 odd, not immoral to my mind, and perhaps less hypocritical than manv who went to church. —Yours, etc., YOUTH NO. 2. August 11th, 1932.

TO TH3 EDITOR OF THE PBESS. Sir,—The young Hedonists are quite right, for the Bible says: "Rejoice, O young man in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes; but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment." The Bible also says: "He which if filthy, let him be filthy still." In the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.—Yours, etc., PAUSE AND CONSIDER. August 10th, 1932.