CONDITIONS OF SOCIETY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 244, 14 September 1932, Page 12

CONDITIONS OF SOCIETY

ALLUREMENTS OF EVIL.

AVELLINGTON, Sept. 13. Opening a week of special services in St. John’s Church on Sunday evening in connection with the Youth for Youth Campaign, Rev. G. T. Brown, M.A., of Palmerston North, devlivered an outspoken address on the moral conditions of society which beset modern youth. He said that allurements to evil were much more blatant to-day than they used to be. The onslaughts made upon morality were more intense and bitter than they were twenty or thirty years ago, Mr Brown said. Things that once whispered in silence now declared themselves openly. Sins that once skulked in secrecy now stalked abroad unashamed. The publicity once associated with the inevitable consequence of secret sin acted as a valuable deterrent. But many of those consequences could now be averted, and it would seem as if people were more horrified by the discovery of wrong-doing than by its essential moral and spiritual viciousness. With God it was not so. It was sin itself that was hateful in His eyes, and however its physical consequences could be hidden, its spiritual degradation could not be avoided. In a real sense its ravages were irreparable. Some people still thought that they oould “sow their wild oats’ while young and then later on settle down into a Bemi-whitewashed kind of respectability. “Only a fool,” declared the preacher, “could be deceived by such a lie of the Devil.” If evil were allowed the run of the life in early days, it would leave its defiling marks on the soul for 'all time. There was need to remember the truth of the old saying, “Be not deceived, God is not mocked, whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. He that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption.” . Speaking of how to overcome the allurements of evil, the preacher stressed the necessity of erecting strong and adequate safeguards about one s life. These were all very good and necessary, but ithe only final safeguard was the resistance which came from inner life and health and strength. It was the sickly plant that was overtaken with blight; the strong, virile plant could resist its attack. Jesus Christ came that men might have life and have it abundantly. It was only that more abundant life which Christ gave that would enable men and women, beset by fierce temptations, to become “more than conquerors.”