A REMARKABLE SPEECH.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19867, 13 August 1926, Page 10

A REMARKABLE SPEECH.

A LLOYD GEORGE ADDRESS. MR CHURCHILL’S BLUE PENCIL. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. (Prom Our Own Correspondent,) LONDON. June 30. What would happen i£ Christ came to London to-day? Mr Lloyd George speculated on this theme in a remarkable address at the Welsh Baptist Chapel, Great Castle street, London on Sunday afternoon. “If Christ had been here during the late strike,” he said, “I am perfectly certain that all His utterances would have been excluded from the columns of the British Gazette. The editorial blue pencil of Mr Winston Churchill would certainly have out right through the Sermon on the Mount. X rather think that the Home Secretary would have had Him watched as a dangerous character preaching doctrines and principles which were subversive of our (pstitutlons. And you would probably find that the next edition of the Gospels published In the twenty-first century would have been compiled, not from the recollection of His disciples, but from the notes taken by the police who attended His addresses. —(Laughter.) “I am equally certain that He—probably for approval of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s appeal for conciliation instead of force —would have been excluded from the Liberal Shadow Cabinet. So that I am not sura that He would have been altogether acceptable under present conditions. DOCTRINE OF THE GREAT REVOLUTIONARY. “His doctrines were revolutionary. They were subversive, like ail growth, disintegrating, changing the very character and complexion of things. They were like seeds dropped in the crevices of a great fortress which gradually destroy by their growth the fortress itself and dismantle it.” Mr Lloyd George, speaking of the doctrine of the brotherhood of man, continued: "You would not leave your brother to rot in slums If you could help it, nor tell him that if he had worked better he would have deserved better. Yet there are eight millions living in this gigantic city, men, women, and children—eight millions of souls, and there are hundreds of thousands living under conditions which are a disgrace to this greatest city under the sun. These people are our brothers and sisters. This doctrine of this Great Revolutionary, it applied, would simply cleanse the land of the stain of the slums." CHRIST WOULD SEE IN TRUER PROPORTION. Dr S. M. Berry (secretary of the Congregational Union) expresses his>views thus: “Sir, —The question, ‘lf Christ came to London,’ is generally raised for purposes of condemnation. Probably that 1s the last use of His name that He Himself would approve. He was not nearly as prone to condemn as many of His followers seem to be. There is much, of course, in modern civilisation that would not pass His test. He would hate the things that crush and burden the lives of men and prevent them from living a true and full life. Much that we think. Important He would pass over lightly. Much that we neglect He would emphasise. "But I believe that He would have some encouragement to give to all those who are taking a share in the great tasks of society. It is too generally taken for granted that He woulil condemn the whole order of things to-day; I believe, on the contrary, that He would speak more about our hospitals and healing agencies, our welfare work for the children, our schools and colleges, our provision for old age, than about the darker facts. Civilisation has brought many evil things in Us train, but He would see It in truer proportion than some of the orators who lightly use His name.—S. M. Beery."