ELASTIC MORALITY

Manawatu Times, Volume XII, Issue 1807, 4 May 1921, Page 2

ELASTIC MORALITY

The most obvious need of the day, in the opinion of the Hev. H. C. Gillie, president of the National Free Church Council,'is a renaissance of personal morality. Solvent and disintegrating influences are at work which threaten to undermine longestablished foundations. In some quarters there is a moral rottenneas which hides itself under the glamour of high adventure. Men justify the mean audacities of sin not by flic excuse of some compelling passion or appetite, but as a nobler form of living. That marks the exact change in the moral situation. When our forefathers sinned grossly and deeply, they did not call their vileness or their violence by any other name than sin. But to-day wc have an adjustable morality, which declares that jvliat may be habitually wrong, and wrong for most men, may be quite right and no|ile for a particular man if the circumstances are hard enough and the temptation strong enough. That is the salient feature of the moral situation. The churches ought to be able to provide the antidote. It will not be disputed that they have been the chief fountain of moral purity, imperfect as they are. No reasonable person doubts to-day that what kept our armies decent, in so far as they were decent, was the Christian manhood in ilieir ranks, men definitely Christian or holding to the fine tradition of Christian morality in which they had been reared. A number of people are urging today that man is the slave of passion. If a new gust of passion seize him, it is argued that lie is doing the inevitable and (bo honourable thing in leaving the wife to whom lie has pledged himself “for better. lor worse.” The marriage bond is lo depend on inclination. Jn the elm relies such specious arguments still receive the treatment they deserve. Wo know moral cleanliness, and we treasme 11. Wedded fidelity whicli is capable of weathering storms and is cemented by willing parenthood is highly honoured here. 11 is rigid to hope lhat a moral renaissance will spring from a revitalised ehnreh. But (he siluation is a complicated one. We non! an intelligent as well as a resolute morality. There are eireiimstancps which forbid a mere return to the! morality of Puritanism nr of the Evangelicalism of this \ iclO'-t.Vii ( ra.