PEACE OF THE WORLD

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXI, Issue 303, 7 December 1931, Page 7

PEACE OF THE WORLD

INFLUENCE OF WOMEN. ADDRESS BY ARCHBISHOP AVEBILL. The many avenues in which mothers could direct their influence for the betterment of the world were referred to by Archbishop Averill when speaking at the service held in connection with the annual festival of the Mothers’ Union of the Diocese of Auckland. “I am quite convinced that tho real peace and welfare of the world is primarily in the hands of women,” the Archbishop said. “Civilisation based upon materialistic ideals had crumble 1 and it is only the higher idealism which will save it.” Nobody knew better than the mothers the horrors and misery of war apart from its futility, and it was therefore the duty of the mothers of all nations to use their great influence in erecting the figure of Christ on the great boundary line between war and peace. He urged mothers to stand for the outlawry of war as a means of settling international disputes, and to pray for the great international conference on disarmament to be held in February at Geneva. “If that conference fails, civilisation will fail,” he said. Too closely connected with the forces which led to war were the forces which led to industrial unrest. Again it was the mothers and children who were tna greatest sufferers in times of industrial disputes and unemployment, and for the sake of expediency as well as pocket it behoved them to work and pray for a new spirit in industry and a more Christian relationship between employers and employees. The growing difficulty of home-life at the present day was another aspect touched upon by tho speaker. “It is useless to expect to return to the standard of Victorian days or to fret against the new spirit of liberty which has taken possc-sion of the young pen pie, nnd it is useless to expect young people to find in the home the sum total of their recreation,” the archbishop said. He warned mothers, however, against the danger of allowing their homes to become mere houses for their children. The real difference between a house and a home was that in the latter there was the sanctified presence of a mother which still remained the greatest power in the world.