BIRTH STATISTICS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18875, 30 May 1923, Page 2

BIRTH STATISTICS.

A DISQUIETING STATEMENT. , ' VIEWS OF CANON JAMES. (From Our Own Correspondent.) ■'...AUCKLAND, May 23. Tbo remarks on the" subject' of moral standards made by the Bishop of Willochra at the Church Congress were dealt with by Canon Percival James at St. Mary's Cathedral last evening. He said no thoughtful person; could imagine for a moment that such a statement could be true. It nad marshalled a formidable array of facts and statistics ■which ought to be studied by every patriotic citizen, especially fathers and mothers. They could not fail to be disquieted at the moral standard disclosed, especially among 1 young men and women and boys and girls. Leaders of the Church of England, said Canon James, had instructed the clergy long ago to do their part. The Lambeth Conference of Bishops urged the clergy as part of their regular instruction in . the Christian religion to give to their people'plain teaching and explanation about marriage and sesual purity, concerning which many are lamentably ignorant. Those who looked to their church for help and guidance had a right to expect that the plain and simple teaching of the church should be given from the pulpit. Among Ihe causes of prevalent immorality indicated taught in the Prayer Book, the preacher referred to two: Relaxation of parental control of the young, and lack of sex instruction for the young. It is an astounding thing to me, said Canon James, that 60 many parents allow their boys and girls in their early teens to run wild, without any control, exposed to the strongest of all temptations, temptations arising from sexual passions, loading to sins which most surely ruin body and mind, and defile the soul. Parents expose their children to these deadly perils without any adequate warning or preparation which would put them on their guard and enable theni to resist temptation. Either through sloth or.false modesty they neglect their solemn duty to give careful instruciion on the subject of sex to those they have brought into the world. Parent?, he said, might prefer to delegate this solemn duly to some trustworthy person—a clergyman, or doctor, or teacher, although in nis opinion no other could give it so impressively as tho parent. But upon the parent rested the responsibility of seeing that it was given. Speaking of tho purposes of marriage as taught in the Prayer Book.' the preacher said that the second was the hallowing and controlling of the natural sex instincts implanted by God. To live a pure and chaste iife before and after marriage was God's law, and there was not. one standard for women 1 and a lower standard for men. It was a degrading lie to say that perfect chastity was too high an ideal to be expected from the normal man. Every sound man treated every woman chivalrously in the way he would wish another man to treat liis own mother or sister or daughter, and. added Canon James, let every good woman appeal to other women, as-the need arises, to show such self-respect, such modesty in dress and behaviour, as will claim the respect of men and avoid putting stumbling blocks in (heir path. If there lias been a lowering of . our -moral standard, then women must bear the most of the blame. Many women seem eager only to throw , away the very crown and glory of womanhood—woman's • reserve and modesty. . . ■. ■