Clergy and People.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 366, 7 March 1932, Page 6

Clergy and People.

To the Editor. Dear Sir,—There is one class of men in the community who have much in their power. I mean my brethren the clergy of all denominations. It is a most unfortunate state of things that, in a free and in a growing community, an impression should be abroad in the minds of the working

classes that their professed spiritual instructors are indifferent to their temporal interests. There has been for some years past by far too much division, and too much party warfare, while the great practical questions regarding the physical condition and educational wants of the working classes have been overlooked. Far more time would require to be devoted than is devoted to the duty of pastoral visitation; and I verily believe that a most important and truly valuable end would I'C gained as respects the employed of all classes, were they simply to lie assured that they are really cared for by their spiritual instructors.

It has been far too much taken for granted that the complaints of the operative classes must, as a matter of course, be groundless and originate merely in political discontent. May the service of the clergy be made profitably available for removing prejudices, for lessening the distance betwixt the extremes of society, and for bringing the lessons of Christianity into closer contact with the physical comforts and moral improvement of* man. Is there not a danger lest the clergy may prove conservative in what is not only an oldfashioned error, but an error of most dangerous tendency, the error, namely, of thinking that working men are mere machines?—l am. etc., LAYMAN.