Greymouth Evening Star. AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE SATURDAY, MARCH 8, 1924. A BETTER WORLD.

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 March 1924, Page 4

Greymouth Evening Star. AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE SATURDAY, MARCH 8, 1924. A BETTER WORLD.

This has been a week of church conferences both at home and abroad, but it is doubtful if many have aroused general public interest. The subjects discussed were important to the welfare of the community, but whether the treatment was uninspiring, or the speakers faltering in the delivery of the message they had to unfold, certain it is that the immediate result is small. One reason for this, perhaps, is that so pessimistic a tone was maintained about the standards of the outside world, the faults being magnified and the virtues overlooked. It will be generally agreed that mankind is still far off from perfection; but progress is being made by each generation. Methods may differ, but the highest ideals alre the same. Distant generations, like distant pastures, appear ■ attractive n superficially glanced at, but in what respect is, say, this generation really worse than any of its predecessors ? In what essentials of good conduct is man, as a whole, falling from grace more than his fathers and their fathers did .■ General denunciations are easy, but they are rarely accompanied by convincing evidence. This generation is horrified at what a century ago was regarded callously, if. not as a matter of course, and it is fairly safe to predict that- some accepted evils of to-day will be. rejected by the next generation, partly through the efforts of the men of to-day. Men’s greater humanity to man must make the angels glad, and should encourage reformers to continue their efforts at further improvement. Each generation delevops its special temptation to a . particular evil, but it is increasingly' realised as

such, and counter-action is taken. Is there any present-day wrong that is not being vigorously attacked, or is there any avenue of virtue that is not specially cultivated? Were similar efforts to the same degree' made by our ancestors? If-the answer is in the negative how can it be justly claimed that mankind is retrograding. It is absurd to suggest ,as some prone to jeremiads so frequently do, that mankind Jias made, little spiritual and ethical progress since the beginning of the Christian era. History tells quite another .story. With a vastly increased population there are.more wrongdoers, but the good-living people have far more multiplied. The light of publicity is stronger to-day than ever, and if the sin consists merely of being found out, then there may be some grounds for misgiving. Exaggerated statements seem to be expected at church congresses.. Eyen Sir Oliver Lodge, who declared that the; aim of scientists —and he is one of the greatest in the world,— was truth, followed that state-

i ment with inferences that the ■ average man of to-day is not '• much better than the old time ‘ average cave-dweller, and that lie is a slum dweller, with a tendency . to mutual extermination. And these are the days of greater kindliness among all classes, extensive housing and town-plan-ning betterment schemes, and advocacy of a League of Nations with the abolition. of war and armaments. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, to a similar gathering, declared that people were valued by their; material possessions. Yet he and his colleagues, for the most part poor men, have attained the highest positions possible in their State. In an age admittedly democratic and increasingly im-. patient with titles, trappings and ostentation, die .declared that we are losing the sense of what real . human value is, and were going too much after superficialities. If

this generation is so erring, how much greater at fault in this direction were those that went before it. The “good old days’’ when calmly analysed or dissected, prove to have been very bad old days l , particularly for the underdog. x Slowly but surely, that is being changed, which indicates' true progress. Jeremiah has always been a favourite pattern among preachers, but dismal utterances can be owerdone, and, in that case, are really mischievous. Mankind for many generations will deserve reproof for failings, but that is not to say the world will be no better for its experiences of the effects of following good or evil. None of us is so good as he ought to be, and very few are as bad as they might be, or so black as sometimes painted. Some mentors appear to believe that unless the path they lay down for themselves is universally followed, the world must be in a bad way, but that narrow view is not necessarily true.