EASY-GOING OPTIMISM.

Northern Advocate, 8 May 1914, Page 7

EASY-GOING OPTIMISM.

Canon John Watson, Sub-Dean of York Minister, addressing a congregation of business men at a special Leuten midday service at York the other week, said that if national life was to be lasting and powerful'the foundations must be surely laid, godliness, righteousness, and brotherhood being at the base of it. A striking parallel had rcently been drawn between the, circumstances oi the Roman and the British Empires, and it was remarkable that the very vic»es which were the ruin of Rome were being manifested in our English life. Perhaps the indictment was overdrawn, but he believed this decline need not be. There was surely enough left in our race to. shake itself . and recover from its present maladies. The enemy to be feared was an easygoing optimism. Shrewd observers noted a marked tendency to decay. Colonists ridiculed the swagger which young Englishmen assumed out of all proportion to their worth. This sham swagger was a deadly foe to thoroughness. We seemed to, be breeding a race of "slackers." If this be so it was an appalling phenomenon. What wery the roots of the mischief? -Peace and prosperity had bred habits of self-in-dulgent c and luxury, and a flabby desire, of learning and doing what was easiest. There was an effeminate sentimentality abroad which regarded physical discomfort and pain as the, great: est of evils. . The age men— strong, duty-loving, ready to serve the State instead of squeezing as much out of it as they could. There was no greater curse than undiscipline in tie case of young men; there was no greater curse to themselves than the hysterical

and neurotic women,