NEED FOR FAITH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23599, 7 March 1940, Page 11

NEED FOR FAITH

CREATING NEW WORLD ADDRESS BY MODERATOR PRESBYTERIAN CELEBRATIONS "We must never forget this, especially to-day when changes of tremendous significance are coming upon us, that the problem of creating a new world order is primarily a problem of faith," said the Rt. Rev. J. Lawson Robinson, of Christchurch, moderator the General Assembly, when speaking at St. Andrew's Church last night at a united communion service, which initiated the Centennial celebrations of the Presbyterian Church in Auckland. About 400 people were present, the Rev. P. Gladstone Hughes, moderator of the Auckland Presbytery,

presiding. "With the break-up of civilisation into communities inspired by false doctrines of race, class and nationality, the churches have become the principal guardians of the idea of the human raco as an organic unity subject to universal laws," Mr. Robinson said. "It is in the growing power of the churches that lies, as Mr. Roosevelt has seen, the principal hope of recreating the basis for a community of nations.

Mighty Part in Future "It is not through blind reaction that the world will find its way back to peace and sanity, but rather through a balanced understanding of the need for a common faith to restore coherence to human society, and of the impossibility of finding any such faith in purely materialist or utilitarian philosophies.

"I am convinced that the Church of the future will hav# a mighty part to play in the building of a new and better world," the speaker added. "I believe she is, under God, the one hope of mankind. In a world grown old and tired and disillusioned, she alone possesses the secret of renewal." Dealing with New Zealand's progress in the past 100 years, Mr. ißobinson said that if any worthiness as a people had been attained the credit , was largely due to spiritual influences. Too few recognised that a large measure of their security and peace was due to the fact that their fathers held aloft a spiritual ideal. It was also not recognised that many were living on the spiritual capital, their fathers laid in store, and which had become seriously depleted by their own neglect of those things for which the Church stood.

Heroism of Pioneers "I do not hesitate to say that the trust and confidence that still obtain in business relationships are largely the heritage of the religious principles of the past," Mr. Hobinson added. "It will be a perilous thing for this generation, not only from a moral, but from a business, point of view, if ft allows the spiritual atmosphere to become exhausted."

Mr. Robinson paid a tribute to the heroism and sacrifice of pioneers of the Presbyterian Church in Auckland. Tn tlie province where they had laboured there were now five presbyteries, 144 churches, 296 other preaching places and 55,000 people under pastoral care. The men of the past gave to the present day the great example of courage.