LIBERTY AND LOYALTY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17914, 17 October 1921, Page 6

LIBERTY AND LOYALTY.

SPIRIT OF THE EMPIRE.

BASED ON AFFECTION.

RELATION TO RELIGION.

A special service for men was held in St. Sepulchre's Church yesterday afternoon, when a number of members of the Church of England Men's Society renewed their membership under the new "Rule of Life" of the society. The Bishop of Auckland, Dr. A W. Averill, conducted this ceremony, and many clergymen were present in their robes.

An address on " Liberty and Loyalty " was, delivered by the Rev. W. Bullock, organising secretary to the Church of England Men's Society in New Zealand. He reviewed messages that might be derived from the history of the nations and asked what was the special contribution of the British race. Without hesitation he thought we might say it had given a new meaning to the term " loyalty." The loyalty displayed by the different men and women, as by the different parts of the British Commonwealth, was a new feature in the history of the human race. It was not mere obedience to authority that had kept the Empire together, for, indeed, the day was passing in which men were afraid to question the basis of any authority but the spirit of loyalty, a genius for friendship which had issued in a more successful policv of colonisation than any other nation had been able to effect. Neither need we doubt this because we were faced within the British Commonwealth at this moment with grave exceptions. We sometimes heard of disloyal elements. He was not sure they were not signs of health, for loyalty must be based on liberty and must breathe the air of freedom. It was not a quality that could live in an atmosphere of restraint and petty legalism. It was grounded upon those inherent rights of man which the Christian religion had made plain to human sight. Our Supreme Contribution. The preacher said we did net as an Empire learn the Lesson in a day and without hard knocks and grievous disappointment, and he referred to the breaking away of the new States of America. Thank God we were humble enough to learn a lesson from that event. When the South African war ended and the tumult and the shouting had died away, by one of those noble acts which often went uncounted, we retrieved our reputation. We gave back what we had spent blood and treasure to win. And when the late war broke out and men trooped from the furthest corners of the earth, did we reckon it accidental, strange, and freakish evidence of wax fever? He thought not. Men went because of a loyalty which had respect to human liberty, not out mere fidelity to & written law, but out of an affection and a friendship which was difficult to analyse, but too valuable to lose. Loyalty then was our supreme contribution, far above patriotism, as that was commonly understood, a noble impulse which had its rootd in liberty. But signs were not wanting that such a quality was in these days and in NewZealand being endangered. We had almost forgotten that it was Christ who gave to the human race its ideas of liberty. Not only did Christianity liberate us, hut it led us forward. Its golden age was always in the future. As a nation thought so would it act. Its code of morality would have some relation to its education. What were we being taught, and what were we thinking in New Zealand? We were being taught that we could make men good and women kind by a system of petty laws and regulations of the State. We were being led to understand that if only we got the children to salute a flag in the day schools wo would make them loyal. He questioned whether the Ministry of Education understood the flag and all it had come to stand for in our history. We were not loyal because we saluted a flag nor would we become so. That was a dodge made in Germany. We saluted a flag because we were loyal. " Put the flag in the schools and let it be saluted every morning," said Mr. Bullock. "But in the name of sincerity and honesty please explain it. Do not give the children a ritual without a reality, and the flag without the faith which made it. Dangers of State-Made Religion. Herein fhere lay a parable. We were as a nation becoming content to accept a religion of the State as being enough for human needs. The State made regulations for our conduct in many directions. It controlled our actions if we wanted to bet on horseraemg. If we would marry it would tell us how to do it. And if we wanted to separate it would be still more explicit and accommodating. If we had children it would make provision for a certain education. Much of this was no doubt unavoidable, but what was the danger ? It was simply this: That we who were Christians and followed One who had made and unmade States and nations, should accept the standards of conduct which satisfied the State as sufficient. That was a danger which was becoming very grave. We should remember that no State could so forward by some automatic power within it. It had to hitch its waggon to a star, and when it broke completely with the star there was only one course open to it, to sink barkward and always backward The st,-"nlard of the State was not enough, even for the State itself. To allow the State to make the only religion we could have, was to follow the example of Germany.