SOCIALISM.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 333, 21 October 1908, Page 5

SOCIALISM.

•• • _—« 1 - CHRISTIAN AND ANTI-CHRISTIAN. VIEWS OF BISHOP JULIUS. THE HORIZON OF DEMOCRACY. TELEQEAFII—ntE33 ASSOCIATION.) ; ; Christchurch, October £0. •In his address at the opening of the Anglican Synod to-day, Bishop Julius said that nothing in the reports they- had received of-the Church Congress in England was more remarkable than, the evidenco they afforded of tho rapid spread of Christian Socialism. Social service was the keynote of many "a stirring speech. Tho moro grave, responsible, and' deliberate utterances of the Lambeth Conference breathed tho same spirit. Thero was a Socialism which waß not of Christ. Stem and menacing, it proposed'to regenerate the world by putting God out of it. There was'also a Socialism which, believing that God in Christ was tho one hope of a sinful world, sought to develop to the utmost the social principles of Christianity. -As Christ and Anti-Christ so were those opposed, and one or other of them would possess the world, for men despaired .of tho existing order. !They were weary of the ceaseless patching of a worn and tottering fabric. There was a universal Cry for justice, and a fairor distribution_of the wealth that was born of labour. Nor was it a class question. Tho wealthy were as sick of an aimless lifo as the poor of their struggle for a bare subsistence. _ Experience though limited to this Dominion was sufficient to show that unrest and dissatisfaction would never be allayed by any idjustnient of wages, and that tho trouble lay" deeper than could be touched by an Arbitration Act. Sooner or later they would all'be'Socialists by conviction or of necessity. If the new democracy narrowed its horizon, and centred its aims on material happiness; if it failed to take account of sin,.. and put the Cross of Christ out of its-,soheme for the social regeneration of tho world; if tho wealthy held fast to their rights, and ignored their responsibilities, made money without heed of the social and moral wrongs they did to their brothers in tlio. making of it; if they regarded themselves as a privileged class, privileged to rcoeivo and not to render service, even so Socialism would come, but it would come as a reign of terror. : "