WORLD’S NEEDS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 69, 20 February 1932, Page 9

WORLD’S NEEDS

TASK FOR THE CHURCH. “As we look abroad we are confronted with the spectacle of a bewildered world,” said the Rev. M. A. Rugby Pratt, president of the Methodist Church of New in opening the annual conference in Christchurch on Thursday evening. “Civilised society,” he said, “lias been shaken to its very foundations. Ancient institutions have fallen in wreckage. Old bonds are broken, old props are shattered and old moorings loosened. War has done its evil work and has left to ifs a legacy of tragic devastation, of heartrending misery, of widespread demoralisation, and also a crushing burden of ,debt. The world is torn with strife and rocking in agony. “Nations are reeling from the shock of internal convulsions. International hatreds and jealousies are rife. The devil of distrust lias the human race by the throat, and the spectre of fear

haunts the peoples of the earth. There is in almost every country unprecedented industrial depression and seethirig social unrest. Millions of men are out of work" and are enduring the anguish of economic impoverishment, while the nations are threatened with financial collapse. It is not too much to say that this is} an hour of crisis in which the well-being of the world hangs in the balance. The fact is that the world has lost its equilibrium. “The church must' give moral leadership and take constructive action in promoting every, cause of truth and right and justice. A spirituality that is not directed to the concrete tasks of this work-a-day world becomes vague and meaningless. Wliat is demanded of us is a spiritual experience that will express itself in the terms of practical life and service.”