LABOUR AND THE CHURCH

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 205, 24 May 1919, Page 2

LABOUR AND THE CHURCH

(By W: A; Appleton, Secretary of'the • .. General Federation of Trade Uniojis, in' the "Daily Mai].") .

Hasty generalisation mid emphatic utterance characterised the presidential address given by the Rev,'A. T. Guttery at the National Free Church Council at Sheffield. Dr. Guttery is really, a good .fellow, and in thfe days when I knew him more intimately than I do. now ho always..radiatedan atmosphere of vigorous; if somewhat biased, Christianity, But his picture of: the "idle rich, seeking "relaxation in drugs and drink-and in tho beastliness of inventive sensuality," illustrates at once his oratorios! style and his disregard At tho moment of delivering the address he would quito honestly bolieve Hint circumstances •justified his denunciation/ and also that responsibility for a revolution, if it came, ■would rest upon the class ha was assail- •: illg. ' ' That vico exists is incontrovertible. That'it is the monopoly of any one class ■ is. highly debatable. • •■• If I question alike the accuracy and the wisdom'of Dr: Gultery's conclusions, it is because the class that has'no'tinio for analytical thinking' may be misled' by his forceful language and his sweeping generalisation. He may unwittingly, ami certainly without desiring to do so, have caused thorn' to think less of their own responsibilities and worse of the. religion of which he is a distinguished-advocate. They have just passed through a dangerous and a trying time. Tliey have lived, under artificial conditions, niid they are expressing themselves in ways that dilFer from the ways of. their grandfathers,' but they are no worse'than those who preceded, them,• end .they are not aiming at tho tragic revolution which Dr.-Guttery fears,- ■

They qrc iip| even irreligious, aiul.tlieir nbspiice from church and chapel may "bo little more than itn inability to appreciate the kind of religion tanghtv or a quiet condemnation'of the Church's efforts to make its services nttrnctivo instead of bringing them into actual relationship with tho sorrows and sufferings of men and women.

If the Church is to win back tht mass —not to sanity mid' right feeling, because theso qualities already exist, but to membership nijd association-it must preach less of tho hereafter and take more cugliisauce of every-day problems. ' It has been the boast of tho ministry that it lias not taken sides. Herein lies the canso of its failure. It should lmve taken sides at all times, not ift partisan politics, but in conflicts that «(fcct_ the lives of men. It should always hnvo open on the' right side. This is indeed difficult, but' not mora difficult than, and not in opposition to, the course mapped out for the Church- by its Founder. Diatribes lvhioh set'class against class will not bring men within tho sphere of the Church's influence.