GUIDE TO NATIONS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22900, 1 December 1937, Page 15

GUIDE TO NATIONS

CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY WAY OUT OF TANGLED FOREST TALK BY BISHOP HOLLAND [by telegraph OWN correspondent] WELLINGTON, Tuesday The Christian philosophy of life was the only thing that could guide the nations out of the tangled forest of problems in which they were lost today, said the Bishop of "Wellington, the Rt. Rev. H. St. B. Holland, in a luncheon address to the New Zealand Club. He urged that Christianity should be taken more seriously as a factor in the future well-being of the nation and the world. Men who were thinking seriously about the world, which to-day compelled serious thought, would recognise that its future depended quite definitely on more than eeonomic factors: yet there was a wide divergence of! opinion upon what factors the future of the world did depend, said Bishop Holland. "At present there is a sense of despair, almost as of men lost in the bush, who cannot see their way through," he continued. "The bush is too thick —the problems are too terrific. Men would give anything to have the bushman's friend, the fantail, going from tree to tree, pointing the way out. Some may feel that what I represent, the Church, should be, to some extent, the fantail, guiding the mass of the people out of their dense forest of problems. I cannot honestly conceive the Church's place in the world if that is not its job." Representatives of the Church would be far better shearing sheep—doing something practical—if they were not of. some use in the national life, but he believed that the claim that religion went to the root of the national existence and the future of the world could be substantiated. A noted economist. Sir George Page, had declared that never before had the world been in such a grave position; it was definitely on the road to a new war unless there was a change in policy; each nation was trying to save itself at the expense of others, against both Economic and divine law. "What does he mean by 'divine law'?" asked Bishop Holland. "I interpret it as meaning the Christian philosophy of life, which alone, is capable of leading the world out of the bush."