CLASS STRIFE

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 45, 17 November 1920, Page 3

CLASS STRIFE

TH&CIIUKCH'S RESPONSIBILITY. "And what of the great industrial questions that so trouble US' to-day?" asked the Moderator,.the Kpv. S. W. Currie, Jf.A., in his inaugural address before the Presbyterian Assembly last evening. "What of the strife between clafs and class?" ho continued. "Many questions here press for. an answer, and some of t-liem 100 abstruse for the (.rdinar.v clergyman or the ordinary worshipper. But, even then, it is mv deep conviction that I lie leaders in the Church should be inoro capable of an answer than they often are. And so, for that niattor, of the rank and file of our ministers. ■ Tihey are, as a class, scholarly' men. I wish I could think of them all as competent to deal with these Kreat issues—as competent as the natural lenders of the people should be. Personally, I have always been most thankful that the latter years of my university:- -course led me (lions these very lines, and, if my voice has- not carried far, I have this satisfaction: 1 liave not spoken foolisnlv or at random. Not than I mean that the tackling of these problems, or the responsibility of solving them, is for the Church aij such. But it is for the Church to fit' and sem'. out men to the task. They mue-t. of course, be wise men, and men of reading and of experience: but more definitely, they must be filled with high ideab, and be fully consecrated to the great work (if translating these into, tho life of the day—-"The ideale of Jesus." It is the title of 'a most interesting and' helpful book from one of our greatest theologians Dr. W. N. Clarke. "Rules and regulations, is ho points out, are for the individual, and for the time being; princinle®, principles issuing in great and worthy ideals, are for all time. But these the Church should see, and inculcate; and these the members ol the Church shoub in their industrial life, bring down to earth and translate into life and action. We simply cannot help it. If the' Church js« to get a hearing in these- day 3 she must, in this way, as well ds in others, justify her existence. It'was. of'course, always an obligation How much more is that so in these latter days, yrith our great rising democracies, and the materialistic spirit so avowedly dominant oil the Dart both of rulers ar.d people. Said De Tocqueville, in his 'Democracy in America'—an old boo'now, but in this matter well up to dot*' —'Desnotisni may govern without faith, but liberty cannot'; and yet ■ again, Christianity must be maintained at any cost in the bosom of modern democracies.' And tho.lesson is for ourselves. For national prosperity, including within if commercial and industrial prosperity, we need God, but God mediated, as always, UiTougli men and women. On God and Oodlike men.' we build our trust.'"