VOICE of the NATIONS

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 261, 4 August 1928, Page 17

VOICE of the NATIONS

SAYINGS AND WRITINGS :: :: OF THE TIMES *

Politics In and Out of the Pulpit. “How can we, even if we would, keep politics out of the pulpit or out of the Church in these advanced days?” writes the Rev. Albert D. Belden, in the “Daily Herald.” “The' pulpit should lead boldly, not follow timidly. It should give free sanction to every activity calculated to help man in his social relationships. Once that is accepted as a part of the preacher’s duty and privilege, how can a logical mind stop short' of politics—man’s dealing with his brother man in town life, in rural life, and in our national and international relationships? Yet we still hear the injunction: ‘Keep politics out of the'pulpit!’' For myself, it is Impossible to decide where religion ends and politics begin. The two permeate the whole of life, and are often indistinguishable. No proper man—least of all the Christian teacher — wishes to take back on Monday what he said on Sunday.” A Tribute to Fine Work. “One of the best of hostels is that of the Church Army Home, in Great Peter Street This is a striking example of the advantages of voluntary over State charity," writes Mr. F. A. Mackenzie in the “Daily News.” “The doors are open very wide, day and night. The derelict is given a good meal of thick meat soup and bread, a bath, and a comfortable bed. Next morning he is expected to work for an hour at some simple task, and is invited to remain for a three days’ labour test If he stands this, he isnext offered an opportunity, as fay as room allows, to 'start life again in a Labour home. The atmosphere in Great Peter. Street is cheerful and hopeful. There are books and papers, bright services, games, and even a billiard table. All kinds of men have gone through the test—ships’ surgeons, ruined tea-planters, accountants, engineers, men from, many professions and' from famous public schools, besides unskilled labourers, hotel servants and the like.” Which is Your Class? “Do you belong to the jawbone class, the class of folks who talk ■ About the many things they’ll do, the paths of fame they’ll walk, \ Who boast about their conquered worlds and deeds right nobly done, While yet. their efforts end with words, i no task is e’er begun? “Do you belong to, the wishbone class, the class of folks who long That wealth and fame might flow to them for just a little song. Who wish that ease would be their lot and praise their fortune, too,' While all the while they' nod and smile and naught but nothing do? “Do you belong to the backbone class, the class of folks who work From early mftrn till. late at night and never duty, shirk, Who dig right in and fight their way toward the grand success That waits ahead ’ for folks who give and always do their best?” —it R. Stanley in “The Watchword.”The Rat Also Runs. “The pursuit of the electric hare has become so popular that it has attained the melancholy status of a social problem,” says the “Manchester Guardian.” '-Now the hare Itself is to be pursued in the race for favour. The electric rat has entered the ring at a London sporting club, and men of rank and fashion solemnly sit in armchairs to watch terriers either chasing it in vain or chasing each other with more hope of results. Of course if the passion for instituting these native substitutes for the casino is sufficiently strong there is no limit to the amount of available spectacles. Cats might be too sagacious to follow electric mice or sparrows, but donkeys would surely take the track after an electric carrot The vital question' is the number of human donkeys who can think of nothing better to do with , their evenings and their pocket-money. ’ . Trust the Experts.

“The plain fact is that on archaeological and linguistic matters we have to trust the experts, and, furthermore, we can trust them,” writes Dr. T. R. Glover, in the “Daily News.” “The amount of knowledge accumulated by scholars and archaeologists is enormous; and the forger, or the imitator, is certain to be caught out somewhere. One of the cleverest forgers of highvalue French banknotes was caught out through forgetting that bankers usually pin them together with a common pin. The mark of the true expert is that he never poaches. The expert in sculpture leaves postage-stamps and poisons '■ alone. Why not accept the fact that literary criticism and spiritual life may help each other, but can do without each other, that they deal with separate fields? Just try to change that commonsense , of yours into real sense, and try a little experience.”

Views of a Judge. “In the matter of criminal reformation the State always lagged behind public opinion. It was the private enterprise of people like John-Howard and Elizabeth Fry that had brought about the improvement in the treatment of the criminal, and it was the private enterprise of great organisations that had led to the system of probation,” said Mr. Justice Rigby Swift, at a meeting reported by the “Liverpool Post” “Do not relax your efforts because you think the State ought to do what you are doing now,” he went on. “Rest assured that some day the State will do it, but until then it is your duty to continue those efforts. I spend the greater part of my time on the bench not deciding for how long I should send a rnn to prison, bu‘ whether I can possibly avoid sending people to prison, particularly for the first time. In that connection one of the greatest factors for good that I know is the police. I have never yet known the slightest hesitation on the part of a police officer in giving, me the help I wanted in providing facilities .for those whom I wish to let go.”

The Turmoil iu Religion.

“The fear that Christianity will collapse before the dread tribunal of modern rationality is widespread; and it is perhaps for this reason that the layman in England shrinks from, investgating too closely theological matters involved in this great Prayer Book dispute, and confines himself, as I say, to a somewhat blind opposition to the reintroduction of any foreign practices ejected at the Reformation. The present turmoil in Anelican circles, does but give point in one country to discussions which are the outcome of modern thought in many lands and amongst persons of many denominations ; and I want here to bring Christian theology of all kinds under lay criticism, so that the secular mind may 1 aided in forming an opinion as to the worth or worthk mess of the faith. The. question as to whether certain practices of the Church of England are ‘Roman’ or not is but of local and passing moment: it is the question as to whether Christian theology in general can have the approval of twentieth century brains or not that Is of real importance.”— Mr. Arthur Weigall in his book, “The Paganism in our Christianity.”

Free Churches and the Prayer Book. “This desire for a fuller and richer expression of worship is by no means confined to those who use the Book of Common Prayer. Indeed, it is felt even more strongly among the Free Churches, where devotional expression is left almost exclusively to the minister. Lessened interest in Church worship is attributed to the bareness and tameness of a service in which the active participation of the congregation is severely restricted and the p.ayer and intercession are so entirely dependent upon the powers, the vision, and the sympathies of the minister. With the spread of education comes a higher degree of intelligence and a greater sensitiveness to refinement of expression, which render th* congregation more susceptible to any uncouthness or lack of , taste in the representation of: its feelings and the presentation of its prayers and intercessions before God, and which correspondingly increase the difficulty and the strain of the minister’s task.”— “Methodist Recorder.”

The Spreading of tha Average. .“Nothing strikes ine so much as-the absence now, compared with forty or .fifty years ago, Of: great personalities outstanding above their fellows. We have a high level of public service and public work, but have we got anything at all corresponding to the outstanding personalities that dominated Europe or England at that time? Something ha.' happened which has changed conditions, and although we may have a very high level‘of merit and activity we don’t seem to have—l don't think there is any question about it—the outstanding figures there were in the days I can first ’ remember. I don’t know whether that is‘good or not I should think it is a misfortune. It may'be that everybody has been raised higher, and, therefore, the peak does not loom so large as it did in older days. Does it mean that the quick, competent, universal circulation of knowledge has grown to such a scale that it makes it practically impossible for men to emerge because there is no‘ the leisure or opportunity of doing it that there was in the old days?”— The Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Age of Character. “The eighteen-eighties were a remarkable period in the history of the English, people. They were what we might call ‘vintage years” in English character. About this time there were living in ; England—contemporaries with one another—Gladstone, Tennyson, Disraeli, Carlyle, Ruskin, Browning, Huxley, Henry Irving, W. G. Grace, Gilbert, Sullivan, Newman, Manning, Matthew Arnold, Spurgeon. Liddon, and Darwin.. These names—■ and several more could' be added-— stand for a considerable.amount.of accomplishment and capacity. But still more, they stood for character. And when these men were all alive, not only they, but the very houses in which they lived—Hawarden, Hughenden, Coniston, Cheyne Row, and so on —were as familiar as household names, the country became intensely conscious of them, just as, I suppose, the people who live on the plain around. Stonehenge are conscious of that circle- of monuments towering up into the sky'. —Mr. Haslam Mills, in the “Christian World.” An Underpaid Peasant.

“Good production is already below the real needs of the world,” writes Sir Daniel Hall in the “Countryman ; “the growth of population alone, not to speak of any industrial revival and its resultant increase in purchasing power, must convert the deficiency, now covered up, into a visible scarcity. If industrial progress is to continue the growing population must have more food. This can no longer be supplied by extending cultivation on to new land, for that is running short It must be attained by greater production from the land now cultivated. That can be done, but not until better payment is forthcoming for both farmers and labourers, that will bring with it higher efficiency. Is the stimulus to be deferred until food scarcity produces higher prices? Present prices are dependent on small margins. If there were an upward movement it would probably be rapid.” Private Economy.

“Even more important in its practical effect than economy in public expenditure, central or local, or other action by the Government, is economy in private spending. The P osslbl ® cretions to the available capital fund from this source are far larger th can flow from governmental saving. During the ar an S appeal was made for voluntary saving‘to help to win the war. Is a similar response to a similar appeal impossible to-day to help to re-win national well-being?” — The Round Table.”