OUTSPOKEN BISHOP

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 May 1937, Page 14

OUTSPOKEN BISHOP

UGLY MODERN INFLUENCE Strong references to some aspects of national life were made by the Bishop of Gippsland (Dr. G. 11. Cranswick) in his charge to the Synod last week at Sale, New South Wales. Dr. Cranswick said that in the last 20 years there had been a great “slide” in thought concerning the place of the home as a unit of national life. Today the divorce courts were the busiest courts in the land, spreading behind them a pitiful trail of human wreckage. “Experiments in comparionate marriage and other irregular alliances have produced a cynicism that makes peace and self-respect and poise rather a mockery,” said Dr. Cranswick. "These are ominous signs of an influence in our national life that is wholly on the side of disintegration and is entirely non-Christian.” Dr. Cranswick said that at the end of last year these ugly influences and developments were found to be attacking “the very sanctities of our Royal home.” “And with one voice, representing the entire race, we said that it must not be,” continued Dr. Cranswick. “The standards of the King’s home, wo said, cannot be permitted to deteriorate. How deeply significant was the attitude adopted by this race of ours. It showed that it still recognises the things that make • for its peace. And now the challenging question is, Do me mean it? Are we Glare we not the hypocrites some other races have declared us to be? “Next month there comes the Coronation of our King and Queen. It means nothing less than their dedicatfon to God and His way of life. And, remember, they are our representatives.” Dr. Cranswick referred to the “un-der-paid dairy farmers of Central Gippsland. The farmer, he said, was receiving 9“d a gallon for whole milk; in. Melbourne the consumer had to pay from 2/- to 2/1 a gallon for the same milk.

“If we were .Christian,” he added, “could we allow this discrepancy to continue? Should we not have to demand that the governing powers and the experts find a way of giving a more just reward to the man who does the heaviest work —the primary producer?” Dr. Cranswick also spoke of city children without sufficient milk, and transport drivers who worked under trying conditions. Many drivers, he said, found that after three months of these conditions their nerves were broken.

ABDICATION OF BEASON Everywhere in .the modern world, Dr. Cranswick said, reason was being permitted to abdicate. It was a process which gathered momentus each year, and unless it were arrested there could, be no hope for the future of civilisation.

“There is no excuse whatever for Germany and Italy in the shocking cruelties of which tjiey have been guilty,” Dr. Cranswick said, “nor can anything he said to justify the revolting excesses that are undoubtedly being committed, by both sides in Spain. ‘Jew-baiting’ and the ‘baiting’ of any other set of people, simply because of their race or religion, is as definitely un-Christian in Germany as anywhere else. But the ruling powers in Germany, as we know, are striving desperately to get rid of the incubus of Christian sanctions. “The story of Italy’s dealings with the unfortunate Abyssinian race has left a (grrib.le blqt on. the escutcheon of a supposedly. Christiah people, and the Pope’s continued inability or unwillingness to condemn those who have written that story .brings a feeling of shame to every Christian soul.”

Dr. Cranswick said that the same process of dethroning reason could be observed in everyday life. On the highways, for example, it was becoming increasingly difficult to avoid being killed by fellow citizens “in their mad desire for speed in all circumstances.” Another disquieting feature was the appalling increase in cruelty.

There was one solution —a return to religion, said Dr. Cranswick. This return would mean presenting to the Nazi state, the Fascist state, and the Communist state the challenge of the Christian state.