TENDING TO DRIFT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17452, 29 December 1930, Page 10

TENDING TO DRIFT

UNSETTLED TIMES CHRISTMAS AND CHRISTIANITY ' Bishop sprott’s view

A present-day tendency to drift awayr from Christianity has been noted by Bishop Sprott, .who, in a sermon in St. Paul’s ", Pro-Cathedral, Wellington, on Christmas Day, said that he thought the drift whs due, in a large measure, to the general unsettlement of the times. The service was well attended, and included in the'congregation were Thgir Excellencies the Goverhpr-Generul, Lord Bledisloe, and Lady Bledisloe. His Excellency read the lessons. “We “are living in an age in whicii there i.< widespread drifting away from Christianity,” said the bishop. “This drifting", away is due in a great moasuro . to tho general unsettlement of the times. Tlie whole fabric of human life and

society 'is being shaken to its foundations, and everything that has come down to us from the past —even some of the jnost yenerable things:—is being widely questioned and doubted.” Bishop Sprott said he thought some -of this drifting away was due also to tho widespread misconception as to what Christianity really was, what the Christian life really Was, and to the icjea many people'seemed to have that Christianity and Christian life was alien and foreign 1 to human nature. And so, on .such a day as Christinas Day, it was not inappropriate to consider this question, to inquire if Christianity was l really a natural thing. ELEMENTARY BELIEFS . <* What then, were the essential characteristics of human nature? It was

true to say that investigations for as fur back-ili. possible went to show that human - life, throughout history, had three main inherent things. One was fhe belief in an unseen spiritual power , or* powers, a power in some way closely related* lo ’human” life itself. Another was tire sense of moral life and moral obligation. -The third was the belief in a God whp. was benevolent in addition to other things, True civilisation had consisted—;aria did consist—of. the gradual development of those elementary figures and beliefs. I The process of development had not ! always been uniform; there had been periods bfsfagnutiGh, retrograde wander- 1 ings and bewilderment. Nor had the ■ advance been made at an equal pace, for! some had risen above their fellows—prophets, saviors, saints—who had been sources of inspiration to all ages. Nor, again, was the process anywhere near * complete, although perhaps it was a fact that the present day marked the fullest advance made in the development, of benevolent understanding. We were proud of our humanitarianism, and perhaps that same humanitarianism was tlm most praiseworthy thing there was in modern life. Yet to-day there was still dishonesty, fraud, untruth, greed and, most common of all, ordinary everyday selfishness. „ NOT ATJJStf TO' If CM AN NATURE “Now let us think- of the life that came Alto tho world on this day,” lfis Lordslup * proceeded. “It was not a . cloistered* sheltered life—it was a strenuous life lived in the open, ofttimes in the whirl of public excitement, . and it'was ended as a. result of treachery, of the. fickleness of popularity, of perverted justice; its end carqe with :. murder on the cross. What, hud been tho outstanding! ’characteristics of that «lifq? Just those three things he lin'd mentioned, and those three in. thenhighest power. Surely it could not bo BSSfeVv-Y - *■£, iS-i**.;.- •

said that that life was an immaterial qne, alien to human nature. To diffuse that spirit and that mind throughout human life and to make them truly powerful in all difficulties in human lives—that had been the purpose of His coining.