RELIGION

Waipa Post, Volume 43, Issue 3392, 24 December 1931, Page 3 (Supplement)

RELIGION

ADDRESS BY THE RT. HON STANLEY BALDWIN.

At the annual assembly of t he <?°3 gregational Union in the City xe» pie, London, Mr Baldwin gave an J dress on "Religion and the NatgW Life." He took the chair at o»tf the centenary gatherings, antffo s presence on this auspicious o%i on was greatly appreciated. "Religion, we are all agitf," Mr Baldwin said, " is not merely affair of Christians in politics, in trade, in industry, urjchool, w sport. But, if we adratfthis claim of religion to be able to inform the whole of life with its spirit, that does not mean that the sarcflfying of the secular has been achieved.

"That there an aspects of the secular revival yith which religion cannot compromise on any terms is true," Mr Baldjza proceeded, "and it is the truti which the churches should be firstfand loudest in proclaiming. To elevate every desire, however maybe the way of all flesh, but it is not the way of the Cross. And the moral anarchy which is said to pervaife our youth, and which is reflected or imagined in much modern fiction and. in some more serious publication?, is not going to be countered by louring the demands of religion, but by insisting on them.

"The notion that to enlist the support and enthusiasm of youth it is rocessary to condone their vices is Mtirely to misjudge them and to for//eit their respect. The churches are much more likely to fail in the long run because they demand too little than because they demand too much of human nature.

"That young men and women should be shocked and stung into revolt by some features of our day is the best hope of the future; that they should riot in pleasure and forget them would be to write their country's doom. New scientific knowledge, new economic power, new political enfranchisement, combine to set perplexing problems, but though not give heed at once to sound doctrine we are not incapable of learning from experience. Nor is conscience dead, though modern psychologists call it by another name. The English are the last,people who are likely to be rid of it, if their history proves anything. ,

FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH. '%.. '■'.': .;-K : 'i "What is, the function of the Church in % time like the present? " asked Mr Baldwin. "The Churches should cultivate their own garden—the garden of religious life. This is their own peculiar field, and within it they should strive to grow the finest; fruits of the Spirit. They should welcome the increase of knowledge in every branch of learning with wide open doors. The popularity of the writings of eminent physicists and mathematicians must rejoice all of us. The revelation of the poetry of the mathematical world, of the harmonies of the innumerable spheres of thet-as-., tronomers, of the infinitesimal subdfr ;; visions and motions of matter, the ; mysteries of growth—all this splendid drama described; with such literary power is tremendously impressive. ; " But do ndtyter us imagine that discoveries in.ra»|world of the higher or biology are going to re|Erove or even reduce our difficulties moral plane. It is not,necessary t 6» be v a great mathematician to be a saint or even a good -.' citizen. . There are', simple truths which 'seem vhidden from .the high aiid -mighty, and revealed to farm labourers and'Charwomen., I am not desKpising science, jam only 3ng that,moral values, 1 eternal in. their;; in their form, and' I application, are the I ,foundation of a I country's greatness.

"If moraJUvalues 'flourish in our common lifei" Mr Baldwin concluded, " all with the: nation, and we confident a? we |y to keep r thevi&ipn of the! Kirigdorii of ...-:£ Godfjlori ear v th- in our pearls,: tliat, -ij; though it remains, and will remain. * to us and for our children a land which is very far off, yet will surely.; come at some great; distance frorii .this evening . 1. that the Kingdom of God bnearth may be seen with the visible and -'seeing:*eyes of mankind." »■}