RELIGIOUS IDEALS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18354, 21 March 1923, Page 12

RELIGIOUS IDEALS.

Sir,—My first reading of the Herald 8 loading article on the above subject led | mo to feel that it served only to damn with faint praise the denomination to which I have the proud honour to belong. On a second perusal, however, I am convinced that this was not the intention. Even a newspaper editor, however, might perhaps rather sit dumb _ in i.he presence of an ancient institution which has done and suffered more than any other to secure our present civil and religious liberties. It is so easy to pay glib and half-hearted tributes to venerable glory, it is so easy to assume credit and : to broadcast it where credit is little due. ; If the- other denominations are really following so largely in the "Congregational i way," that is surely no reason why we | should relinquish our mission of emanci- ' pation. The very statement that Congregationalists themselves may not always have fully lived up to the high ideals they cherish serves only to show how perilous is the tendency to reaction, and how much mankind and the Church are in need of a constant, heroic, and unfailing lead in the path to liberty and light and life. It is comparatively easy to quote instances where men have fallen short of lofty ideals that is not, however, , just ground" for criticism, disparagement, or denial of the idea! itself. It is easier still to take to ourselves as churchmen in general victories we have never bled and died to win—like the man who helped his wife through the keyhole to kill the boar in the kitchen. That, however, is no just ground for mutual admiration. When other denominations declare themselves in like terms to those quoted in our recent manifesto, from Dr. J. I*. Jones, of Bournemouth, we may be prepared to accept their overtures ~*s an honest appeal for real Christian unity, | without uniformity, or if it be with any | measure of uniformity, then, as all Students admit, it. can be only the degree of it possible under the wide-winged ! aegis of Congregational autonomy, with j self-determination for the group. Mean- I while, we are as anxious as you appear I to bo to secure such means of federation j and co-operation as the times demand. | In conclusion, let me point out that our j Congregational unions do not interfere j in any way with our local church government; the functions of the former are j deliberative and advisory only, and not legislative. Clyde Cash. Linwood Congregational Church, Christchurch.