CRAZE FOR AMUSEMENT

Southland Times, Issue 18834, 29 May 1920, Page 5

CRAZE FOR AMUSEMENT

VIEWS 01' THE REV. F. B. MEYER. In his presidential address at Ihe annual a-semhiv of the National Council of th* Kvangrlc Free Churches at I Bicester, the Rev. Dr Meyer sain that the whole world •seemed possessed with the craving for gain. The soaring prices, endless strikes fop higher pay. the profiteering vampire sucking the national Mood, and tha extravagance of the new rich were all >ymp- | tomatic of the recrudescence of materialism. [They were staggered by crimes of violence, I due probably to the abnormal excitement iof the war. Careful statistics, indicative of the persistent limitation of family life, suggested race degeneration. The brutalities of the ring, the immodesty of fashion, the ■sensnousness of the dance, the substitution of spiritualism for religion, the craze for amusement, the ostentatious extrav;ig:m"S of the profiteer, must give all thoughtful people cause for anxiety. Crowded theatres and picture shows stimulated the appetite for the starlFng and tlie sensational, and the craving o.tea degenerated into a restless search for fresh excitement (o titillate an exhausted and glutted appietite. It was nor the Church's business to vie with the dancing master or the dancing academy. “In one way or another,” Dr Meyrr continued, “man is a fight big animal, t,. Fte we have had unpleasant explosion- o' Mrs spirit in degrading prize fights, more politely phrased boxing contests, which ere patronised by so-called ladies bent on emulating the wives and daughters of the Roman nobility, who crowded the Colosseum in the darkest days of the Empire. We must call the nation hack to God. The rest day is threatened, the churches are depicted, spiritism is ousting spirituality, (he thin veneer of theism is replacing Christianity, the basis of morals is utilitarianism and the vast preponderance of our people have less religion than the Hindu or the Kaffir.”