LOST LEADERSHIP

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 21 April 1934, Page 10

LOST LEADERSHIP

DI2FICII3NCY OF PERSONAL CHARACTER The Bishop of Durham. Dr. Henson, in a lecture entitled, “The Analysis of Leadership,” delivered to the members of St. Andrew’s University, stated that democracy appeared to be on the brink of moral bankruptcy. Modern civilisation was confessedly suffering from a. perceptible weakening of the sense of individual responsibility. There was everywhere apparent a shortage of natural leaders. There were not to he found enough upright, independent, courageous individuals who could be trusted to work the highly-complicated machine of civilised society as wo had received it. Moreover, this formidable deficiency of persona! character seemed to be increasing, since the prevailing tendencies, alike in politics and in economies, helped to discourage independence and to reduce men and women to items and dittoes. How far was it possible to arrest those tendencies, and so to order social life as to develop such

moral assets as society possessed? How far could education stimulate latent individuality? How far was it possible to acquire the l:).)ld and masterful habit which made men willing to accept responsibility, daring enough to take the initiative and brave enough to run great personal risks? Socialism and Communism, whatever their merits, were hostile to that unshackled self-ex-pression of the individual human spirit, which was the glory of true culture. The outlook of men’s higher self was bleak. Of all the moral forces known to human experience the most potent,

ami, on the whole, the most beneficent, was religion. Individuality had risen to its full potency, and (lowered most richly, when quickened and disciplined by religious faith.

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