THE GROWTH OF RELIGION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 2 June 1930, Page 7

THE GROWTH OF RELIGION

TRUST IN TRUTH . .' ’i ■ * ' ■ /. j/ i( i “There is a note which I seem id hear insistently as I contemplate the future —a note of daring, and of trust in truth,” writes Dr. Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Manchester, in the “Millgate Monthly.” “The scientist has not laboured in vain. He has taught us to trust truth ;,-'.and truth has amply, rewarded him. Religion slowly discovers that she has nothing to fear from everadvancing knowledge, horn of the love of truth We learn that the , truth makes us free. Doubtless it brings discomfort and cracks the forms in; which our religious life resides. That is inevitable. I take courage from the lesson of the forest trees. I see their gnarled and crusted bark; so useful to protect, so apt to constrict. The new stream of life comes pulsing up the trunk on spring and summer days. The tree swells. The bark cracks and splinters upon a thousand lines; and then patiently reforms its protective coating. , In precisely similar way the crusted, forms of religion and the smooth modes of institutional life suffer the rhythm of disintegration and subsequent remodelling as the new life pulses through the world. Only when that life ceases can the modes remain unchanged. Thank God there is less prospect of that tragedy than ever there was.”