FAILURE OF OLD RELIGION

Southland Times, Issue 23026, 21 October 1936, Page 12

FAILURE OF OLD RELIGION

PROFESSOR MACKENZIE’S REGRET SECULAR RENAISSANCE ’ OVERDUE (United Press Association.) Wellington, October 20. Writing in the Victoria University College magazine, Professor Hugh Mackenzie, who is retiring after 37 years as Professor of English Language and Literature, said that modernists and futurists had already captured the university and securely established themselves in most of the professorial chairs, and it was obvious that a new secular renaissance and a new ethical and religious reformation were overdue. “It must be regretfully admitted,” he said, “that old world religions and philosophies have failed us and old humanity or -culture begotten of a serious and systematic study of the ancient Classics, has also failed us. It is to be hoped that the modernized and futurist universities will succeed in formulating a new and stable international ethic that will command the assent of all nations, acquire the status and sanctity of universal religion and so save civilization from what at present looks like its inevitable extinction. What is most disconcerting and disheartening to me, an old man, is to find the old religion and the old philosophy, to which I owned allegiance and owed so much have failed to contribute anything towards preventing the criminal savagery at present practised all over the world and threatening to extinguish civilization itself. Can our modernist and futurist universities contribute anything of value toward formulating an international ethic which, when adequately appreciated, will command international and universal assent? That is a consummation devoutly to be wished.”