WORK AND WORSHIP.

Evening Star, Issue 12872, 23 July 1906, Page 1

WORK AND WORSHIP.

, ! Thehe is abundant evidence to show thai ■ strong efforts are being made in various . pJirts of the world to bring about closer . J conmmnion between workers and worsbip- ; pers, bnt tie evidence of fruit-bearing ace j not very encouraging. The wave of revrrad- | ism that reached high-water mark in Wales i a few months ago, and that bore upon its ' { crest some thousands of the working classes, < has quieted down to mill-pond calmness, as | was to be expected, and in the land of the . • leek society has gone back to normal conditions of a very excellent type. In all com- •; munities church organisations are sending IJ messengers into highways and byways, bid- !' ding the indifferent como in to hear glad tidings that will do them lasting good. Peripatetic missioners and evangelists carry ; on their crasaues under various banners. ' j Theso different agencies, for the most part, . | look for their harvest amongst the workers' sjand if these reapers do not fill their ■ bosoms with sheaves, the presumption is J that the soil they are working in is poor, the crop is not ready for the sickle, or the' ■ methods employed are faulty. If men indi- ; vidualty, or classes of men in globo, have 1 religious aspirations they wish to satisfv, I tie means at their command ■ are ■ ]n ; sufficient abundance in all conscience and in s endless variety. In the zenith stand the ( Anglican and other churches, with educated ; priests, splendid litanies, and reverential i surroundings; afc the nadir works the Sal- ! vation Army, led by illiterate but earnest . officers shouting their invitations beneath i banners with a strange device flattering at l t street corners; between the two extremes, Soldiers of the Cross, under well-nigh ! countless denominations, make common I cause against evil in its multifarious forms. | In Dunedin, we have been recently assured, . some of the suburban congregations include a large percentage of working men. On the ; other hand, there can be little doubt of the ; fact that a great many of those engaged in > industrial pursuits give the churche6 the go-by. They will have "none of these things" that pass current as Christian religion. They apparently want a new deca- • logue and a revised edition of the Sermon on the Mount. Mr W. H. Warren, in a measure, voiced this desire in the Trades HaH last week, when he talked about the Church's attitude to Labor. His eleventh commandment was "The land shall not be sold for ever,? and in this he seems 'to see a divine command for the taxation of land values. He is severely orthodox in wishing to "■bring about Christ's Kingdom on earth," and has evidently the root of the matter in him when ho declares that " only 'by economy and morality 55 can permanent social benefit be brought about. Such belief, plus a little dogmatism, workers may hear every Sunday from all pulpits if they will turn worshippers. The subject of ttiQ Church's attitude to Labor has an obverse side that can hardly be disregarded in the light of recent events that have taken place across the water. The workless, with a . strong admixture of Socialistic agitators of ; the baser sort, have been making Sunday 1 " demonstrations" iri the Melbourne city churches. At each gathering. crowds of from one to two hundred have met at a given rendezvous, and then marched in procession, singing 'Hold up the Red Flag,' Their first visit was to St. Paul's Cathedral, where Archbishop Clarke's sermon, was interrupted by derisive laughter and cries of "We will call no man master." Their next visit was to Dr Bevan's Congregational Church, where, as the crown, had been singing Socialistic ditties ousMe, they were asked to join in singing 'Onward, Christion soldiers' inside the. church. The r notorious agitator J. W. Fleming called out ■ "Christ was not a soldier," and in the '_ courso of the sermon, which, was punctui ated with unseemly interjections, quoted ■ the text which pointed out how hard it was ; for rich men to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The visit to Scots Church was - so outrageous in its nature that the service had to be abruptly dosed by the pastor (Dr Marshall). The demonstrations at other churches, organised by the Social Questions Committee, aud led by Tom Maim and J. W. Fleming, were equally discreditable, and, it may be added, impolitic.' The workless in Melbourne know full well that the leading churches every year collect .thousands of pounds on Hospital Sunday for supporting institetkms that assuage the .; sufferings of the necessitous; that the be- . nevolent burdens of the metropolis fall to a very large extent on thoiskorlders of the J ehurch-goihg section of the community; . j that it is the worshippers and not the work- [ ers who not only give their gratuitous ser- > vices in governing the public charities, but who put their hands into their pockets to support them, and,by testamentary deposition furnish large sums for their upkeep. I The attitude of the churches towards the workers... aad-tow*rds all who need a helo-

mg hand, has always been that of the good Samaritan. It would be a sony broiierhood if jfc -were not so—if ifc we ro for a mc~ menb forgotten that the Christian Church is a worker' B , not an idler's, C3mrch; that' it was founded by a carpenter assisted by a band of fishermen; and that its' cardinal doctrine lies enshrined in the Golden Rale, the observance of which is as obligatory «a the king as on the meanest occupant of a, benevolent instirnfjon. ' The- line of demarcation between sacred and secular is: fast 'being rubbed out; the terms ''comj roan" and "unclean" have no place in aai enlightened man's vocabulary; hence tho closer touch that now exists between tho two spheres of action that have been designated the Church and the World. Tho wants of our common humanity cannot.bo parcelled out in class distinctions, or dominated by Clerical or Socialistic oligarchies. The burden of reform lies on the shoulders of every man and woman in the community and each, is bound by all the obligations of patriotism and 'self-interest to stretch forth a hand to remove every disability that comes within reach. The task of national Eocial uplifting is a huge one. There ara said to be 800,000 unemployed in England at present—nearly as many people as the sub-enumerators got on tlieir census papers in this Colony recently. This Submerged Tenth have to be provided for tern-. porarily, and to be put in the way of fending for themselves in time to come; la these colonies the incubus of poverty is lighter, and the unemployed problem intermittent, not chronic Tho remedy, however, is not to be found so much in the discussion of attitudes between different sections of the conurmnity, but rather in seifrefiant individual exertions and mutual cooperation for tho common weal Nevertheless, pladiorm utterances have their value, particularly if they bear a representative liall-mark.