The WORLD of RELIGION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21396, 20 October 1934, Page 7 (Supplement)

The WORLD of RELIGION

iGJCZ: By PHILEMON

The possibility of the early retirement of Archbishop Averill has awakened concern throughout the Anglican Church and in circles beyond it. The times demand increasingly a wise and inspiring leadership in every Christian Communion and the Archbishop has been an influential leader of men. His sturdy, personality, his loyalty to essentflHPnristian truth, his timely utterances on many public questions, and his wide experience of Church affairs, have all contributed to an influence that has in measure reached every part of the community. There will be very general satisfaction that, despite advancing years, the Archbishop is willing to continue for a time to direct his own great Church and to serve the many good causes with which in this city his name has been so closely identified. The 8.8.C. have always given religion a fair deal in its broadcasting arrangements. Two courses of addresses on " God and the World Through Christian Eyes" found a large public both at the radio and when later published in book form. A new series began on Sunday, October 7, entitled " The Way to God," which bids fair to attract wide attention. It is no easy task to handle this class of subject effectively in comparatively brief broadcast addresses. The aim, of course, is to reach the general public with religious truth, but, as the Archbishop of York has pointed out, if the speaker becomes too formal and technical the listener has a way of escape at hand of which he will not be slow to avail himself, while if the address is too light and popular it may easily fail to satisfy the real seeker after truth. The speakers chosen, however, do not seem likely to fall into these errors. The new Dean of St. Paul's, Dr. W. R. Matthews, will discuss in four addresses " Does God Speak," Father Martindale and Professor C. E. Raven will on eight Sunday evenings speak on the person and work of Jesus Christ, and other men of like ability will complete the programme. The 8.8.C. have as their religious director the Rev. F. A. Iremonger. Here is a class of work waiting to be taken up by the New Zealand broadcasting authorities. They would be surprised at the immediate popularity such a development would gain. Science and Human Nature It is seven years ago since the late Bishop Burroughs, preaching during the sessions of the British Association, said that scientific progress was becoming too rapid for the moral development of the race. In 1932, from the chair of the association, Sir Alfred Ewing took the same view,' asserting that science had given man control over nature before he had sufficiently gained control over himself. The truth that lies beneath these utterances is plain for all to see, and Sir James Jeans again referred to it in his Presidential address this year at Aberdeen. He reminded the association that, while scientific progress is rapid, human nature changes slowly and always lags behind human knowledge. Each generation, he said, by receiving the transmitted knowledge of its predecessor stands on the shoulders of the previous generation so far as knowledge is concerned, but in respect of human nature both stand on the same ground. The remedy lay not in less science but in more science of another sort. He especially advocated a deeper study of psychology and a morality based upon the truer selfknowledge which that study would afford. We do well to regard the truth in,this, but it is a half-truth. It is long ago since Tennyson extolled self-know-ledge, self-reverence, self-control as the

three chief virtues which should lead life to sovereign power. But the ftpspel of self-cure is a lone, discredited one. Man has been foujid to be in central need of that divine help which religion assures him as available. Slavery and Its Horrors

An address of remarkable power was delivered by Lady Simon, D.8.E., wife of the* British Foreign Minister, at the annual meeting of the World's Evangelical Alliance held in London lately. The centenary of the emancipation of the slaves in British Dominions having been recently celebrated she spoke 011 " The Abolition of Slavery." She graphically described the evil days when not less than twelve millions of slaves were captured in central Africa, of which number, three millions died on the way to the coast, and the remainder were transported by the dreaded " Middle Passage." Even to-day, she said, between five and six millions of slaves were waiting for deliverance. In Ethiopia the trade in slaves is widely prevalent and carried on in its most cruel forms, the entire saleable population of villages men, women and children, being sometimes carried off in chains. Every year some five thousand slaves are carried across the Red Sea and sold in Arabia, where the human merchandise stands in public for examination by prospective purchasers, whjle the more beautiful girls are disposed of by private treaty behind closed doors. In China, said Ladv Simon, children can be bought at the rate of sixpence for each year of their age and there are two million of such child slaves. The fact was full of hope that more than forty nations had signed the Slave Treaty under which they were pledged to bring about the total suppression of slavery in all its forms throughout the world. As showing the better influences now at work the speaker cited the freeing of all slaves in his kingdom by the Maharajah of Nepal in 1924 and the releasing of over two hundred thousand slaves in the British protectorate of Sierra Leone in ]928. Dr. Moffatt's Coming Visit Many are awaiting with keen expectation the approaching visit of Dr. James Moffat to Auckland. His vast Biblical scholarship, his broad evangelical sympathies, and his attractive personality have all given his name world-fame. Few lovers of the Bible do not know something about his translation of the Old and New Testaments and the striking and illuminating phrases which aptly bring out the meaning of the original. Dr. Moffatt held in Great Britain the Professorship of Greek and New Testament Exegesis at Mansfield College, Oxford, and later the Chair of Church History at Glasgow. In 1927, to the loss of British scholarship, he became professor of Church History at the Union Theological Seminary, New York. He is now spending his first sabbatical year of rest in a tour of the world. While in London recently he preached from the pulpit of the late Dr. Stuart Holden, at St. Paul's Anglican Church, Portman Square. In the course of his sermon he spoke of the peril of ultrabroadmindedness. He said: " We are beset to-day by an airy sort of spiritual sympathy which seems to me most disquieting. Many people are like one of Thomas Hardy's young heroes, suffering from the modern malady of unlimited appreciativeness. With all their quick-wittedness they have 110 background to their life, no definite convictions about anything. Their motto is: 'There is something in it.' But the Christian says: 'There is everything in it,' and he says it not narrowly but richly. . . . You cannot have the truly broad mind without having first the deep heart."