DR J. R. MOTT HEADS WORLD-WIDE WORKS

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17836, 3 May 1926, Page 14

DR J. R. MOTT HEADS WORLD-WIDE WORKS

CHRISTIAN LEADER VISITS CHRISTCHURCH.

On his third visit to the Dominion is Xst Tchn R. .Mott, best known to the •world as one of the founders and the outstanding leader of the World's Student Christian Federation. Dr Mott is. at present in Christchurch.

He spends some time each year in : Europe, especially in Geneva, the International CT t y for the Christian Federation. and the World’s- Committee of the Y. M/C. A., of which he is a member. both having their headquarters there. In addition, Dr Mott is chairman of the International Mission-

ary Council. As pioneer and leader of all these movements Dr Mott also visits yearly some part of the world other than Europe. This year he has been touring the Pacific, and the countries that border it. Japan, China, the Philippines, the Straits Settlements, the Dutch East Indies, Australia and New Zealand all form part of his present field of investigation. For some time past he has been concentrating his attentions on the enormous problems of the countries of the Western Pacfic. Accompanying Dr Mott on this visit are Mrs Mott, his son Frederick D. Mott and Mr E. Breidford, his secretary. Interviewed this morning. Dr Mott said that, to begin with, he had undertaken his present tour under the auspices of the World’s Student Christian Federation, a body which had prompted his last two visits to Australia and New Zealand. His visit in 1896 laid the foundation of the Student Movement in these lands, and in 1903 he came to renew contact with the leaders of the movement. After serving for twdnty-five years as secretary of the W-S.C.F. Dr Mott has been its chairman for the past five years. This time he is travelling also as chairman of the International Missionary Council, which unites all the Protestant Missionary Societies of the world, and is the direct outgrowth of the great world missionary conference held in Edinburgh in 1910, and the Continuation Committee that followed it. As soon as the war was over the task of replacing the committee by a more permanent body was undertaken, and the International Missionary Council was set up, which has become a larger synthesis of the worldwide activities of Protestant Christendom.

Further, Dr Mott is a member of the Executive Committee of the World Alliance of Y.M.C.A.’s, which links up more than thirty national Y.M.C.A. councils. There is yet another world movement with which the doctor is connected; he is chairman of the Institute of Social and Religious Research, a new body that has been formed since the war to promote original research and surveys of fields and problems in the realm of the social and religious life of the nations. Dr Mott continued that he carried all these four world movements in the back of his mind as he moved about. They were not conflicting. They* were the complement and supplement or each other, supporting and strengthening ?ach other. THE PACIFIC. “ This present tour is confined to the countries of the Pacific basin. I have made a number of round-the-world journeys, and also many continental trips in Asia, Latin America and Africa, and practically every year for over thirty years a trip to Europe. This trip has a different sphere. It is recognised that there is a community of interests and of problems among the nations around the Pacific, and I recognise that the centre of gravity has, shifted in the last few years from the' Atlantic side of the world to the Pacific. The Pacific has become, in mv opinion, the part of the world -where the greatest issues that press upon the mind and will and conscience of Christendom are to be found. It has been on my mind to make this round ever sinc& the war, but not until this year coula I get clear enough of other responsibilities to give the time necessary.” COMING CONFERENCES. firom New Zealand Dr Mott will pass back to Canada, then to the United States, and then hasten early in July to Europe, where" he will conduct three world meetings over all of which he has been elected to preside. In tiie first place there is the meeting of representatives of the International Missionary Council with representatives of the rising churches of Asia and Africa, to be held in Sweden. Dr Mott will make an extensive report on the problems of the Pacific. That will be a twelve-day meeting. From there he goes on to Helsingfors, the capital of Finland, where he will preside over the world conference of This will be the first of these conferences held since 1913, when one was held in Scotland. This meeting takes on a peculiar interest for everybody who has at heart the welfare of the youth .of the world, said Dr Mott.

“It is something quite original,” he went on, “groups of youths or the older boys and younger men have been organised. They include those who took part in the great war and those who were small boys when their elder brothers went to that war. Together they make up a new generation. Thousands of groups among these two

classes have been organised in every quarter of the world. For the last two years they have been discussing and placing on record their attitude towards organised Christianity, towards Jesus Christ, towards one another as comrades, towards the problems of their generation, such as the social problem and the racial problem, the problem of war, and so on. We are trying to find out, not what the experts think the youths are thinking, but what the youths say themselves, they are thinking, what they believe and why they believe it. We will get a cross section, as it were, of groups of all'nations and-races as expressed by themselves of their outlook and opinions, convictions. desires and purposes. The results of these many open forums have already been passed on to the national office of each country, where they have been classified, and now they have been passed on to the world’s office at Geneva, where they are being reclassified and co-ordinated for sending on to Helsingfors next August. They will be the basis of open forums there, where leading representatives from all over the world, including the youths themselves in large proportions, will discuss the same questions at a world sitting. There has been nothing like that done-in the history of Christianity. It is original.” Denmark is Dr Mott's objective after Helsingfors. There are fourteen days L

he will preside over the biennial meeting of the World’s Student Christian Federation. This meets in a different country each time, and probably two years hence it will meet in India. The leaders of the National* movements which form the federation, including New Zealand, will review the present position and ..outlook of the world of Christ among students the world over, and will adopt plans and policies for the ensuing period. The federation is interconfessional; that is, it has expanded iiritil it embraces movements not only of Protestants, but also of Roman Catholics and the Eastern Churches. One of the strongest movements is the Russian .Orthodox Church. This has necessitated the study of interconfessionalism, or how these three great communions may best work together. CALL TO NEW ZEALAND.

“On this third visit,” said Dr Matt, “I seek to send out the call to the students of New Zealand to throw themselves more fully into the problems of the Pacific and the world-wide field. It is New Zealand’s destiny to have a larger and ever larger part in co-opera-ting with the rising churches of the Pacific basin areas, and in the nonChristian world in building up the Kingdom of God, co-operating not only with the churches, but with every movement for the physical, intellectual, moral and social’ uplift of the Pacific peoples. If I were to. characterise the main burden that I bring to New Zealand this time, it is that the cuter world may have more fully the contribution that the Dominion has been providentially prepared to make. That is not a reflection, because as a world observer and as one who has ever been a strong believer in New Zealand, nothing has gratified me more than the way in which she has come out in these last years into the life of the world—in the Great War in a wav that was beyond all praise, and equally in the post-war period when she has been such a formative factor both directly and indirectly through her loyal and able collaboration with the Mother Country.” In conclusion, Dr Mott intimated that he would prefer not to speak at the moment on such subjects as the race problem, the future of the Pacific, and Russia. He will deal with, them in his coming addresses, and preferred to reserve his remarks until then.