THE GREAT EXPERIMENT

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XXIX, Issue 3997, 22 November 1918, Page 3

THE GREAT EXPERIMENT

CHRISTIANITY'S APPEAL TO

YOUTH.

In an article in the "Westminster Gazette," the Rev. Edward Shillito writes :—

"It is the adventure in Christianity that will' make its appeal to youth. The adventure is always: there. The Faith of Christ had been made into a somewhat safe and prosiac dealing with the unseen woild ; in the heart of it, as youth sees clearly, it is a tremendous hazard, in which the som is invited to stake all upon God. It is a challenge to the soul, to count the world well-lost for the sake of Christ. This appeal is on the face of the Gospel; but it is often forgotten. And in order to keep the interest of youth it isi thought wise to tone down the claims of the Gospel. The attempt is bound to break dr-wn so long as men can read the New Testament andthe records of tjie Church for themselves. But of all conceivable follios this is the maddest, to offer youth a safe thing!

" The wise leaders of the Church will rather offer an adventure, never yet perfectly tried ; they will invite men and women to explore for tho first time the meaning of the Gospel in its entire range. They will say : 'You may be called fools; you may lose many things; you will find life a hard fight, but you will enter the kingdom of heaven, and you will, see God.' Such an offer will be rejected by some who hear it. One young ruler went away sorrowful because he had great possessions. Christ lost him; but He won Saul of Tarsus on the same terms. The supreme advantage the Church has in its appeal to youth lies in the adventure and risk of the Gospel. There is glory in it; it, is not a safe thing.

"There is clearly.a movement within the heart of youth 40-d.ay. It is seeking for something which it does not find. It discovers certain timidities -and compromises entrenched within the Church. It is impatient, with restless energies waiting to be claim ed, Will the Church, so far as it is guided by age and middle-age, be merely critical and scornful r< Or wil' it remember that as in so many ages, so now the Church may be say.d by its youth? It may regard only th^ extravagances, the technical flaws, tne unbalanced words, and may dismisr; youth with the indulgent plea that it will be wiser with years. (But, will it be wiser ?) Or the Church may think rather of the lives, waiting to be claimed:, the generous hearts, only longing to be used in some great adventure, the passion of youth for perfection. 'Much depends upon the temper of the Church in the immediate future.

"The war has revealed too late how little we understood many of our boys. They were mysteries to thei~ seniors as \tell as to themselves ; but they had a life waiting to be claimed From those who came back there will still be a life to be claimed. It wculd be a tragedy if the Church made to such men a reduced offer. It is,only the impossible in Christianity that will appeal to the deepest manhood. The hour may be at hand when through these men, tried in the fi>e the impossible is to be attempted ami the Great Experiment b?gun in earnest."