The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1932. THE CHURCH’S GARDEN.

Evening Star, Issue 21035, 24 February 1932, Page 8

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1932. THE CHURCH’S GARDEN.

“ Thebe is a danger, even in the church, lest the depression should become an obsession,” states the report of the Public Questions Committee to the Presbyterian Assembly. Indicative of its all-pervading influence is the fact that within a week the inaugural addresses delivered at two of the greatest regular religious conventions held in New Zealand—the annual conferences of the Presbyterian Church and of the Methodist Church—have been dominated by it. The duty of religion in face of this general affliction has been the theme of both the preachers, and as to its first duty no difference is to be found between them. The churches can best help, the Rev. M. A. Rugby Pratt and the Rev. Adam Begg are both agreed, by preaching a better example than those which are most easily followed by the world and by making better men. That is their primary task, to which they are consecrated, in which also they have the assurance of a solution for problems. The solution is unquestionable; religious orthodoxy is not necessary to make one convinced of it; the only difficulty is that unselfishness is so hard. Also the “ mills of God grind slowly,” and our modern passion is all for grinding fast. Mr Pratt seems to have hoped that, side by side with the strengthening of purely spiritual influences, there might be constructive programmes, more or less material programmes, which the churches could take up to aid men in their present straits and perplexity. If that meant that the churches, as organised bodies, should initiate programmes, it is plainly a forlorn hope. Churchmen individually can and do, w r ith encouragement of their governing bodies, lend their support to such causes as the League of Nations, whose broad aims can be understood by everyone and are obviously for a better world. But a declaration by the Congregation of Christian Churches as to how military reservists should be reckoned for purposes of disarmament or how, in detail, Mr Downie Stewart should seek to square his Budget would be worth no more than the paper it was printed upon. The churches are not experts in regard to those expert matters; in the sphere of moral principles, and that alone, they can speak with supreme authority. The Rev. Adam Begg is satisfied with that field. He is wise, we think, in not seeking to go beyond it. But there is one way in which the churches can go beyond it without injury to their proper function. They can aim at the best knowledge possible of subjects which arc perplexing more than expert minds, so that when those are discussed they may not be ignorant, and may be helped in applying to them Christian principles. The report of tho Presbyterian Public Questions Committee which we have already quoted deals with this subject. While it insists that spiritual influences must be the first consideration it goes on to say: “At the same time we have to co-ordinate principles with practice. Without deserting the sphere of tho divine commission and entering into the arena of party and political strife, the church should seek to study tho facts and causes which centre round the depression and the grave evils and suffering caused, for instance, by unemployment. The committee, through .the convenor,

with the concurrence of the Advisory Board, has asked Dr J. D. Salmond to convene a sub-committee of economists, who shall carefully consider the subject with reference to the function cf the Christian church.” No one will find fault with that quest of practical knowledge. But all that must be secondary to Mr Stanley Baldwin’s wisest counsel that “ the churches should cultivate their own garden—the garden of religious life. . . . Moral values, eternal in their quality, tiansient in their form and application, are the foundation of a country’s greatness.” Or as some one else has put it: “A healthy England—no longer morally rotten—means a healthy world; a merely wealthy England means a sick world.” “ In a quiet and honest way,” states the Assembly’s White Book, “our Presbyterian people have been doing their part by gifts and labours for the alleviation of distress.” And so are all the churches. The religious influence extends, also, far beyond the denominational organisations. A report which wo publish to-day tells how, during the last two and a-half months, one hundred girls have been placed in positions by the Y.W.C.A. Employment Bureau in Dunedin and others helped. That is good work, and all the work of the Y.W.C.A. is good. The street collection which it is making on Friday will give the public their opportunity to support it.