OBSERVANCE OF RELIGION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 300, 18 November 1937, Page 8

OBSERVANCE OF RELIGION.

“WIDESPREAD DEPARTURE.” Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Nov. 17. “The most ominous symptom in the realm of public morals to-day is the widespread departure from the observance of -religion,”, said Rev. E. D. Patchett in opening the annual Methodist District Synod to-day. “A state of semi-paganism weakens the moral fibre of a nation. Real religion and a lofty moral standard go hand in hand. When a nation exhausts its spiritual capital it lowers its power of resistance to inroads of moral infection.” Mr Patchett added that, with a natural pride in t'he country and its people one hesitated to review some of the re-cently-published evidence of the moral drift, yet to open up this festering sore was the quickest way to its healing. “The report of the committee set up by the Government to investigate the problem of criminal abortion constitutes a sad chapter in the story of widespread national delinquency,” he said. “Look-, ing beneath the sufaee it becomes apparent that the crux of the problem is the home. The Christian home is the best place on earth for character building. To enlist the practical sympathy of the womanhood of the country gives the greatest promise of solving this many-sided problem. We need legisla-

tive action, but a more urgent need is a quickened public conscience and the lifting of moral ideals in corrupt society. Man cannot escape blame, but it is one of the chief glories of woman that in’ the moral realm the race is fundamentally in her keeping.” After referring to other social evils, Mr Patchett said there was need in the Dominion for a branch of the British Public Morality League to give coherence and unity to a growing volume of opinion in favour of public action.