MORALITY

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 18084, 24 May 1923, Page 7

MORALITY

NEW ZEALAND’S LAXITY.

A Bishop’s Complaint. NEED FOR RELIGION. An attaok on the morality of New Zealand was made yesterday by the Bishop of Willoohra. There was a tendency, he contended, to lower the moral standard of the community. PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM ; CHRISTCHURCH, Wednesday. “It is probably the first time in the history of nominal Christianity that lust has been so widely excused, anu even lauded as though it were a virtue,” said the Bishop of Willoohra (Dr; Gilbert White) in an address to the Church Congress to-day, attacking what he considered to be the low standard of morals accepted by present day society. Dr. White also cited a New Zealand Government report to show that of the women becoming mothers for the first time in the Dominion each year more than half had been unchaste. The Bishop began by bombarding the Christian inoral standard with that of the modern world. The former, he said, was not satisfied by a mere outward conformity, but required an inward assent of the will and intention—a deliberate following of Christ. A low moral standard did not mean a deliberate love of evil and hatred of good. Many people did right from wrong motives, worldly prudence, habit, or pride. It was fatally easy to sink to the standard which society tolerated. Nominally, Christian people who were content with a low moral standard, did infinitely more harm than notoriously had people who were a warning against rather than an encouragement to evil. Not Easy Going.

God was not an easy going individual world parent. Christ’s severity towards sin was quite as remarkable as His love and pity for the sinner who realised his sin. Content, ment with a low ideal was to him the deadliest of all possible sins. “I wish,” continued Dr. White, “to speak of that moral failure which is by common usage given the special name of “immorality,” sins of the flesh. It is impossible to deny that the most characteristic note of to-day is the cult of ploasure in every shape and form. Pleasure as the supreme end a,nd aim of life cannot possibly he fitted in with the teaching of Christ. It is incompatible with ‘deny thyself; and take up thy cross.’ ’•’ Marriage.

After outlining the Christian ' ideal of marriage, the Bishop con tinued: “To-day, the ordinary novel which reflects the belief and practice of the age not only relies for its interest on adultery and fornication, but these things are regarded as normal and entirely harmless interests in lives of heroes and heroines who do not so much deny as ignore morality as they ignore religion. At the- same time, the Christian ideal of marriage is regarded as old-fashioned and out of date, while the habit has grown up of glorifying sexual passion as an end, and sufficient end, in itself an end, •which justifies the sacrifice to it of duty, purity and honour, so that for men and women alike the following of desire is landed, often in beautiful language, as the highest and noblest thing in life. It is not suggested that sexual immorality is worse to-day than it has been at other periods of the history of nominal Christianity, but it, is probably the first time that lust has been so widely excused, and even lauded as though it were a virtue, nor is this merely theory.

Practical Rdhults,

“Hie practical results are shown in a report of the Committee of the New Zealand Board of Health last year, with its appalling statement that of all the young mothers in New Zealand at least half had been unchaste. I do not suggest that New Zealand ’.s peculiarly bad in this respect. There L strong reasonito believe that Australia is little, if at all better than New Zealand, hut it is a terrible state of things for a nominally Christian country. It must be remembered that such statistics as are derived from marriage returns only show us the irreducible minimum of the evil. It vro wish to know its real extent we have to add the great number of persons who escape detection by use of preventives, and who from other causes do not come under the heading of those officially known.”

The principal causes of immorality as set out by the committee were: (a) Relaxation of parental control. (b) Lack of sex education for the young. (c) Bad housing and general conditions of living.

fd) The presence in the community of individuals in some degree mentally deficient and morally imbecile. (o') Economic: hindrances to marriage.

(f) Alcohol. It was noteworthy that all causes ■ of immorality mentioned by the committee were preventable. They were all largely due to the carelessness, . sloth, indifference and neglect of a nominally Christian community. The remedy, the Bishop said, in conclusion. was the transmutation of sex impulses to creative work, whether in art, science, social service, and religious effort. Christianity was enough For the spiritual health and happiness - of man, and if it really abode in the I heart, there was no room for the i evils he had mentioned.