RELIGION AS A MOTIVE POWER

Evening Star, Issue 20422, 1 March 1930, Page 26

RELIGION AS A MOTIVE POWER

[By Hr S. W. Hughes.]

SECRET OF ENGLAND'S GREATNESS

“These things have been done for us by men and women who have exemplified, the sublime possibilities of Godenthused life. As a nation we are otherwise inexplicable. No human theory of survival can explain the moral power with which this small isle is girt. 350,000,000 in India! 400,000,000 in China, with a history contemporaneous with the beginnings of God’s chosen people! And yet nations that trace their origin to remote antiquity have remained stagnant through the centuries, whereas this little island home population is lighting the pathway of nations towards the splendours of. a war-less world. The Christian religion is the secret of it all, and without it it would he impossible to conserve the influence of our nation before vaster populations which are arising with emergent pbwer. The very solidarity of our Empire is secured in the righeousness and humanity of our religion. Other systems of religion. have failed to produce creative and stable civilisations. The ancient religions of the world have induced stagnation and fatalism. It is' said that more progress was seen in Central Africa in the ten years after Livingstone than in ten centuries before him.

Even tha Roman and Greek hierarchies, with their sustained influence upon certain monarchies of the world, have failed to produce stable civilisations in terms of progressive democracy. Italy and Spain are notable instances of ,tho rise of dictatorships. Protestantism and national dictatorships do not harmonise. The land of Mazzini has still to attain constitutional democracy', whereas the two great nations of Protestant faith attest the power of the Christian religion in their common progress. TO RETAIN LEADERSHIP.

Great Britain cannot retain her place of leadership on a minimum religion,. with broken Sabbaths and decreasing Sunday schools. Wo and all the world are warned against the tragedy of atheistic Communism attempting to mould the life of 150,000,000 souls iu organised contempt of religion and in disbelief of God. Even Mussolini dreads the younger generation ‘ ‘ giving way to scepticism, materialism, and hedonism!” All the world must learn that Russia’s attempt to establish an atheistic State is leading to a brutish disregard of individual conscience and liberty, and such writers as Paul Schaffer and M, Kerensky assure us that atheistic Socialism is a negation of democracy, and a tyrannical denial of the soul’s free thought. Russia has abolished her Sabbaths. Are wo safeguarding ours?

Sunday schools are forbidden. Are we sufficiently alarmed at the decreasing attendance in burs? Russia worships a, dead patriot.. Are we alive to the cultural and refining power of the reverent worship of the living God? The bells of thirty-two churches in Moscow have been melted to celebrate the utilitarian demands of Communist propaganda. Let Britain beware lest pervading secularism lead the people to forget that church bells for centuries have symbolised the eagerness and ecstasy of the faith by which Britain has attained the dignity and authority of world leadership. This leadership is demanding of us the fuller rest and boon of our Sabbaths, the light and hope of our glorious Sun'day schools, the ever-increasing application of the Galilean Gospel to every problem within and without.