IDEALISM NEEDED

Hokitika Guardian, 24 March 1931, Page 5

IDEALISM NEEDED

W.CT.U. PRESIDENTAL ADDRESS. NELSON, March 21. Mrs T, E. Taylor in her presidential address to tlie Women’s Christian Tcm peiance Union said that the coining year sounded a challenge to all that was highest in Christian womanhood, Could they hope that the billions of pounds wasted on drink and gambling by the nations would lie transferred to healthful and reproductive channels? A large number of young women were entering the Union ranks, a matter for deep thankfulness. Mothers were given a tremendous privilege and responsibility in shaping the future of the nation through the children. Both sexes had thrown overboard the restraint and self-suppression that often accompanied parental control and the economic needs of the home. The tragedy had been that, in throwing off restraints, youth in its ignorance had thrown off also most of tiie moral and ■social restraints—those restraints and loyalties without which no nation and no individual could rise to the highest.

“Independence,” continued Mrs Taylor, ••.means life and growth ; but moral and spiritual development necessitate tremendous limitations in the field of individual liberty. Freedom that interferes with the happiness ami development of society as a whole is not true freedom. It leads only to clmos and destruction.

• ‘ iii spite of many dangerous trends the young people on the whole are very splendid in their newly found rnianeipation; hut the perilous fact remains that they huv largely overlooked the true and deep meaning of life and liberty. aiany have never realised the conditions and loyalties that make possible life in the fullest apd .most .satisfying experience. The spiritual foun dation is not there and for two generations it has been lacking. Is j; anv wonder we find ourselves in the grip wonder we find ourselves in the grip of a dense materialism unrelieved by that idealism which alone can conquer in man's upward struggle towards the light ‘i Nothing less than a spiritual awakening from one end ol the country to the other will avail to rouse us to a sense of what we owe to ourselves and to those around us. This means an awakening to the necessity for royalty and service if not to the old ideals then at least to the new valuations and conceptions of man’s life in the highest plane; and man's life Is measured by the standard ot Christ Himself.”