RELIGIOUS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 933, 17 January 1890, Page 6

RELIGIOUS.

CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICS. There are multitudes in France who were angry at Mr. Gladstone the other day for calling France a Christian nation ; there are numbers in England who chafe at every rei mainiDg link that binds the English oonstitu-

tiori to the Christian Church. Those who believe in revelation, and who have studied God’s dealings with His ancient people, must recognise that He raises up, in his own time, fitting instruments to do His work in the State as much as in the Church. If that be to politics are not something separate from andcutside Christianity, but, as Mr Sewell showed nearly half a century ago in his admirable work on “ Christian Politics,” part of the whole duty of man. The burning questions which are pressing daily for solution —semi-social, semi-political, semi-eccles-iastical—may suddenly admit of no delay or dilettante treatment. Those who know the condition of our large cities are aware that at any moment a match may be lit which may bring on a revolution, the results of which none can forecast. The wickedly rich, as Canon Rowsel has well called those who amasß large fortunes and give scarcely a penny of it to pious and charitable uses, may live to rue the day when they were blind alike to their temporal and eternal interests ; but not less are those good folk to blame who hold aloof from politics, and who do not carry out into practice the petition they offer that, “ the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered by God’s providence that His Church may joyfully serve Him in all godly quietness.” We must use means to attain that end, and for that purpose the quiet, industrious, steady and religions portion of the people must not stand aloof, indifferent, careless, and hopeless, till a godless education, a creedless Church, and an irreligious state bring England to as sad a condition as that which has befallen fair France. —Church Review.

It is the peculiar distinction of India that it has been the threatre of four great religions —Hinduism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism and Christianity. The first three have each had many centuries of opportunity, and yet Christianity has done more for the elevation of Indian society in the last fifty years than dnring ali the long ages of their domination. Neither Buddhism nor M ohammedanism made any serious impression upon the caste, neither was able to mitigate the wrongs which had been heaped upon the women ; Mohammedanism rather aggravated them. The horrors of the suttee and the murder of female infantß, those bitterest fruits of superstition, were left unchecked till the British Government, inspired by Christian sentiment, branded them infamous and made them crimes. Even the native sentiment of India is now greatly changed, and the general morality of the better classes is raised above the teachings of their religion. —Dr. Ellinwood, in Church at Home and Abroad. The Rev Owen Jones, one of the oldest Welsh Calvinistic Methodist ministers, died at Llandudno recently, aged S 3. He had been in the ministry 64 years, and had been pastor successively at Llangoed, \ Mould, Manchester, and Llandudno. He was well known as an historian and antiquary, and was either author, editor, or translator of more than 40 books.