Mil BALFOUR RELIGION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 12243, 6 January 1902, Page 3

Mil BALFOUR RELIGION.

Mr Balfour is not among the increasing number who put aside religion with regret as inconsistent with the growth of scientific knowledge, nor has he anything in common with those who pass it with indifference. Speaking at a Church of Scotland Home Mission meeting in (Slasgow, he said they wanted the populations to feel as their fathers felt, the need of that machinery of civilisation wliirh meant religious advantage. During the last hundred years a revolution had taken place which was without parallel in man's history, and educated men of today differed from their grandfathers more than tho latter did from tUe remotest speculators or philosophers in their estimato of the history of the world. | There were great changes in our views of I the history of the heavens, of the solar system of which we formed such an insignificant part, of tho earth on which wo lived, of tho organised heings which for millions of years had inhabited it, of man's history and origin, of the history of tlm Hebrews, and, in a less degree, of tho history of Christianity. Astronomy, geology, ami physics had contributed towards this change. But such a revolution did not bring with it the need for any alteration in Christian doctrine or religion, but of a. changed setting in which religion was from age to age presented to mankind. Individuals passed from religion to irreligion quietly, without even domestic dissension--sometimes with regret, sometimes without it. In fact, they insensibly left tho faitli of their fathers, feeling that intellectual honesty, required thorn if necessary to choose scionco rather than religion. Such people were misled not by the essence of religion, but by tho mistaken statements of the religious teachers. There were those- who had taken refuge from the difficulties of positive religious teaching in what they considered the safo ground of ethical moralising. But that was not the business of the Christian church, and any church jo departing from its great miEsion was destined to make its moralising barren and useless. He was opposed to those who thought the necessity for religion in a civilised community no longer existed, for ho held precisely tho contrary doctrine. Increase of knowledge made religion doubly imperative upon them. This utterance was cheered, and Mr Balfour added that ho would be sorry to think that that view would meet with mere lip approval. The leaven of religious life had been one of the most prominent of Scottish characteristics for three centures, and ho prayed that they might not allow that great heritage to fade away, and that their | spiritual excellence might not diminish under the light of modern education. He appealed to his hearers to put on a solid basis tlioso great efforts to spread religion not merely among the wealthy, tho respectable, and the specially educated, but among every class, in ovory street and alley and backyard, that true. religion and enlightenment might have cause to bo grateful. It seems to the general reader, however, that mere dogma is just as far from true religion as is mere cold morality—a point that was not emphasised.