RELIGION AND PHILANTHROPY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 21 February 1931, Page 3

RELIGION AND PHILANTHROPY

WORK OF THE CHURCHES

“It is quite the fashion to assert that the churches do little for social righteousness and that, on the whole, those people who attend no place of worship -and make no presence of any religious convictions are more charitable, neighbourly and benevolent, in short in every way better citizens, than the professedly religious,”. said Canon l’eter Green in an address to undergraduates of Cambridge University. “This is repeated so often that people come to accept it as almost axiomatic. If anyone will open his eyes he will be forced to recognise that the contribution of non-clmrch-going people, whether in money or in personal service, to social and philanthropic work is almost nil. “After nearly forty years’ pretty intimate knowledge of life in big cities I should say that such efforts for the poorer and more needy portions of the nation fell into two classes. One is voluntary work done by people who draw their inspiration from our churches and chapels; the other is such work as the church has done till it lias so proved its value that the State (central government or municipality) takes it over and, as the late Bishop Creighton, said, ‘calls the process reform.’ But where are we to look for the self-sacrificing work done for others by people unmoved by religious motives?”

THE CHURCHES ANI) THE MASSES

Discussing the question of church attendance, in the same address, Canon Green said: —“Nothing that I read in history or in novels from Fielding to Dickens makes me suppose that the bulk of the labouring classes were regular churchgoers in Georgian times. What of early Victorian times? Does Engel’s ‘Condition of the Working Classes in England in 1840’ suggest a people addicted to regular churchgoing? When Dr. Hook went to Leeds in 1837, ho found nine backless wooden benches behind the font, the only provision of free seats for a population of 140,000 people. The truth of the matter Is that the Church (and hero at least I mean hv the Church all the nonRoman denominations in the country) lias never really won the whole nation to the practice of religion. We talk of the Church losing her hold on the -workers. She cannot lose that which she never had. . . . When I ask myself whether religion is an active force in the lives of a larger proportion of the nation to-day than in previous times, 'then, especially when I reflect that much' which used to pass for religion was conventional, while what religion there is to-day is necessarily sincere and based on conviction, I find no reason for depression.”