THE MORAL CONDITION

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6442, 29 January 1924, Page 1

THE MORAL CONDITION

It was all important to spread the gospel to-day to prevent the growth of the sordid and the false. The speaker showed how the blackberry had spread and infested many areas. There were moral blackberry patches. The daily press was repeatedly reporting sad and sordid happenings beneath which there was a serious moral condition. The local paper had been referring to some local sores in these recent weeks. Men did not want these things to be uppermost in our lands. Every man in his heart knew the good was the best. Then let every man stand in and help. One of the reasons why blackberries spread was that there were not enough people on the land to clear it out. Closer settlement was the best cure for noxious weeds, and closer settlement, more at it and always at it, was the Way to clean up moral disorders in the community. Too much was expected of the minister. He needed the backing of every able and healthy minded man. The speaker told of one of his staff who had been asked by a father to do something for his boys. “I do not intend to do anything for your boys,” was the unexpected reply. Then the missionary explained. “How can I do anything for your boys when you do not back me up? Instead of ‘standing in’ and helping me, you do not attend, you frequent questionable places; you do not help but hinder. If I.am to do anything for your boys, will you lend a hand ? ” The man shouldered his duty, linked up with the church heart and soul, and to-day is an elder ajnd has his boys along, with him in God’s service. It is work like that that waits for men to do, and it is work like that the Church of Jesus . Christ is striving to do. Now was the time to do it when the land was young. Mr Budd pointed out that to-day three-quarters of the people of New Zealand were New Zealand born. If the work was to be done, young men of New Zealand birth and training were needed. They could do it better than any others, though he did not, disparage the splendid services rendered by men from other lands either in the past or the present. The men of the soil were the men for the job. ,It was hard work, but well worth while. To mould the future was their privilege. Let all be up and doing!