A GREAT CRISIS.

Mataura Ensign, 29 January 1912, Page 5

A GREAT CRISIS.

THE TWO SOCIALISMS. AN ARCHBISHOP'S OPINION. 'IT rLKUTRIO TKI.BORA I'II.—COPYRIGHT. PEN UNITKI) PKKKH ASSOCIATION. Received January 29, 9.45 a.m. MELBOURNE, Jan. 29. Archbishop Cair, speaking at Warrnambool, said a great crisis was approaching and threatening the social, moral and religious interests of the people. On every hand there was Socialism which tended to uplift the working man and which he ardently supported. There was also extremo Socialism which was largely identified with anarchism and acknowledged no law, morality, or God whereto lie was desperately opposed. Bishop Gore, in his last sermon in Birmingham, prior to his translation to Oxford, said:—"We are living in a time which is witnessing a profound unrest—in England, in America; social unrest is, we recognise, universal and deep-seated. Society felt in England the solid ground on which it was accustomed to rest was being shaken as by an earthquake, and they felt that the earthquake was only the prelude of others to follow. And with this deep unrest there is also a profound hope. I suppose that there has been very seldom a time when all the outlook and prophecy of the Bible—the prophecy of a good time coming, the prophecy of the Kingdom of God, of righteousness and justice—there never was a time, I say, when that prophecy, that outlook, appealed as it appeals to-day to the hearts and expectancies of people. They feel that it is true that there is a good time coming. Men set to work to devise Utopias, and stretch outlines of the world that is to be. Truly it is a time when from the general heart of human kind hope springs forth like ai deity new horn. We do not doubt . that there is a Divine purpose' in all this, this unrest and discontent, this reaching forward to an age to be. We think of the French Revolution. We , remember that it is quite possible tor the bulk of a nation to have strength enough to destroy the order which existed, but not strength enough to rebuild the social order in its place. We know how much moral strength, how much social cohesion is required to make the social order, to reform and ( recreate our industrial life. Such an industrial life is made up of human re- , lationships, and we look around and we see so much indiscipline, so much moral ( weakness, so much mutual distrust—distrust in the ranks of Labor among . themselves, distrust and suspicion be- i tween class and class—so much, apathy. . Is there, we ask ourselves, strength to ( bring forth that new age, that new . organisation of society which is to be? , And we look to the Church, the Church which- has been the subject of such real , revival, so that no one can doubt the j renewed life of the Spirit of God in our own part and branch of the Church of . Christ. How does it stand—this great cry for social justice, this great cry for , the fair opportunity for every human ' being? It is a cry which the Church is , bound to recognise as its own cry— ■ bound because it reads its Bible. What . we call labor or the workers—by a title as unfortunate for thise who are included in it as for those who are not—we see profoundly alienated, on the whole, in England and in America, from the Church, indeed, from all the settled organisations of religion, looking upon it with a profound suspicion, as something deeply, ineradicably implicated in the old order which they desire to see passing, but powerless to help. In some countries the clergy, who in a remark- < able way have their opportunity in the ' country districts, have done a. great deal *> for the reconstruction of agricultural ' life, which has been such an extraordinary feature in the life of a good many ' European countries; but in England, : where we ought to have had the opportunity, we seem powerless to do anything. We may ask ourselves, 'The children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth.' "