RACE SUICIDE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12544, 11 April 1904, Page 3

RACE SUICIDE.

REMARKS BY THE BISHOP OF MELBOURNE.

The declining birth rate 1 in Australia andj elsewhere was the subject of some outspoken remarks by the Bishop of Melbourne m th« course of a sermon preached in St. ."Paul's. Cathedral recently, on the occasion of til*, annual service of the Mothers' Union. DrJ Clarke said that a grave peril threatened tint State in common with other countries.. Were nearly 20 centuries of Christian civilisation to lead to the unholy resolve to com-* mit race suicide? We could no longer coa-i ceal from ourselves that such a peril threat-* ened us in the Commonwealth. The Government of a neighbouring State, marking; the decline of the birth rate, had demonstrated the fact and its- causes with pitiless logic* Australia knew nothing of these things 401 year* ago, and recent statistical returns showed that but for the reduction of birth rata and excessive mortality of very young children the population would have been 910,000 mere than it was to-day. The report front which he extracted these figures, after proposing some dozen remedies within th» power of Government, finally confessed its pewerl-essness to reach the ultimate causes, which were to be found in moral deterioration, in the weakening of religious restraint and the free play given everywhere to selfishness. They rightly asked for the kelp of the clergy, in' promoting the inculcation of religious principles in the young, asserting that progress and civilisation must, be based upon the religious character of the people. This was true, and as long as Victoria sowed th» wind of secularism she must expect to reap the whirlwind of her citizens' selfishness. What but selfishness, that demanded pleasure in youth at any cost, and which grew calculating and deliberate in later life, could be expected from the thousands of homes where God was little honoured, and all that sweetened, dignified, and expanded the human soul was absent? We were invited in the name of our Christian faith to institute * crusade of such an impressive character as would arouse the conscience of married people to a recognition of the immorality of m practice which not only degraded the marriage state, but, as history and science, taught, resulted in national degradation and decay if persisted in. Th<» Church of Englaud had not been forgetful of these things, and they turned for help to tho Mothers' Union in the performance of a delicate and sacred duly. The union was banded together to, uphold tho sanctity of marriage, and if; was its duty to awaken in mothers of all classes a sense of their great responsibility. Homes were divided by differences of rank. wealth, and education, but the Mothers' Union united them all on the ground of a common womanhood, and still more in the sacred name of motherhood. As their Bishop, ' he laid upon them, in the name of their | church in that diocese, this new duty, arid I he urged them to rely upon prayer for their ■ strength and guidance.