MORAL STANDARDS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 104, 4 May 1937, Page 8

MORAL STANDARDS

A STEEP f DECLINE

CHALLENGE |T0 CHURCHES

ADDRESS |BY BISHOP HOLLAND

(By Telegraph—{Press Association.) MAiSTERTON, May 3.

.*The steep decliije in the moral standards of the average life today was one of the most perious aspects that had to be considered and one which forced itself monl upon people, stated the Bishop of Wefllington, the Rt. Rev. H. St. Barbe Hollknd, in an address in Masterton toniglfa. It was possible! to estimate the force of religion in a fcountry by the moral standards prevailing. When he arrived in New Ifealand he had been told that there jhad been a more or less cyclonic disturbance of the whole moral life of the^country. A new typeof morality seenied to have clawed into the fibre of nations, forcing out the old Christian view of life and morals. They would l:fcive to fight the new menace. ' Referring toAthe recent Government report on abcirtion in the Dominion. Bishop Holland described abortion as a festering sojr« in the life of the nation and saidj 'that it constituted the biggest chalfeinge to the Church that they could pfirisibly have had. The appalling revelations of the conditions existing in tr/fc country had to be heeded. Wheii he questioned what was wrong vwth the moral standards of the natiori he realised that there might be a fat in the stories of the moral evils of dances, of excessive drinking in .tears during dances, and of a general' lack of moral ideals of sex and of |the Christian ideal of parenthood. • The position was ringing a challenge to the churches, which were the one body that coiild stop the spread of the malady in t'iie country. The only cure was a reli.iious cure. The churches should !try io insist on a higher standard. > "We have/tfbeen given a direct chalI lenge," co:tstinued Bishop Holland. "What are (five going to do about it? What good loan come of holding public meetings ;md passing pious resoluI tions? We might just as well play: a set of tennis or a game of bridge. It is a job f'»r the Christian citizens of New Zealand. Leave it to the parsons and I am .afraid that very little will be done. We are too limited in our actions. Ckir views are always suspect because 7t is our job. If we speak against idpas of pre-nuptial intercourse they say |that it is just parson claptrap and i that our ideas are contrary |to the neivt ideas of the nation's manhood."

Bishop Ulolland said they should try to consider how the churches as a whole coitjld improve the standards of the coun'iry's morals and how they could coijnbat false philosophies of life.

"It is jthe growing generations that I am brightened of," remarked the Bishop, 'fif they are brought up on free love." 'pnce sex morality went that was the (end of the nation. It wag the first time he had spoken on- the feubject, he said, as lie felt he should hot do so until the Government report j was published. The position, howevuir, made him very sad and it seemed) to him that the need for the raising/of moral standards was a challenge lo them all, a challenge to all that Vvias finest and best in the . ideals of Christianity and manhood. It was tlie; r Jian outside the influence of the cfiiircb. they wanted, and he urged. "Let'ai go" out and get him. Yovi can :,do tbfat if you have concern and true conccfrn means love."