AN IMPENITENT NATION.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 May 1916, Page 7

AN IMPENITENT NATION.

NOT YET FIT FOR VICTORY. ■ BISHOP ON BESETTING SINS. Christchurch, May S. Tn a sermon last night, Bishop Sadlier, of Nelson, dealt with matters arising out of the war, "Since the war began,'' Bishop Sadlier said, "we have had a great deal of jingoism; we have had a great deal of talk about the magnificent British race, about the British lion and her cubs. But, during the past year and a half, has the talk been of much value to those who have had to say good-bye for ever, or to those who have had the Saviour revealed to them by the marks of suffering ? We as a nation have wandered far away from God. .Ie have despised His holy name; we have forsaken His house.

'"Since the beginning of the war France has put away its- absinthe. Russia its vodka, England has limited the hours of drinking and made the pernicious system of 'shouting' or treating illegal, the States in Australia, one after another, have said: 'Tn the interests of national morals and of national economy we, too, must shorten our hours.' But here we are doing and we have done absolutely nothing. We have not laid aside one single besettiug sin; we have not laid aside one national sin; we have persisted in some of those sins which are ruining the moral fibre, of our race. What will y.ou think of a nation in which £300,00(1 passes through the national 'tote' in five hours ? I ask you to weigh the question. If you put these things on one side and put the awful sacrifices of our boys on Gallipoli on the other, and if you ask on which aide is the righteousness that exaltetli a nation, you will be able to answer.

"Wo are at the present moment an impenitent nation," continued the preacher, "and until we are otherwise God Almighty will decline to give us the victory. Wo cannot hope to receive it until we are fit to get it. Is there no hope? I believe there is. Some of us have been called to give up our sons, some ol' us are on the verge of giving up our sons, and the time is coming to ns, as a nation, when the Lord Jesus Christ will reveal Himself once more to us—and it will be by the marks of the nails, it may be by suffering and death itself. But death is not the worst; thing that can happen .to our boys. 'One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an without a name.' Christ is coming t< us, and it is only as we recognise 'us «>mins; —it is only as we see the lunrkt of Christ—that we shall hscome a m..' ■ J for victory,"