IN EVERY PIE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 198, 24 August 1935, Page 7

IN EVERY PIE

(By “Silent Peter.”) Dear People,--The past and tho present have ever bepn in grinding collision. 'l’he term “this changing world,” coined long centuries ago, is still the advanced slogan of the selfstyled and transient modernist. One hundred and fifty years ago Schiller gave sonorous expression to the garnered experience of an eternally changing world when he said: “Every change is the cause of uneasiness Io the favoured of fortune.” A little earlier in the history of the world, that is t about live hundred years before the birth of Christ, Confucius had a good deal of sound common sense to declare on the. subject of the eternal necessity for “a changing world.” His views, summed up. were that they who would be constant either in happiness or in wisdom must be prepared to change and to keep- on changing. Mankind’s age-long knowledge of the necessity for change notwithstanding, each succeeding generation witnesses a duplication of the first original valiant stand of the die-hards against. i..-ovation and inroad into the sacred precincts wherein is carried on the worship of the gods of things-as-they-are. Take, for example, the dogged defence of traditional religious orthodoxy that is being put. up in many parts of the world by the lately comfortable, easygoing churchman of the ancient regime. Time was when he might sit in his comfortable pew in his comfortable chuiih and hearken unto a comfortable, digestible discourse of the good old-fashioned Sunday flavour; afterwards returning in a benevolent frame of mind to his comfortable home, imbued with tho comfortable conviction that al| was well in the best of all possible worlds. The Church itself has changed all that. It has flung itself into the maelstrom, taking us all with The Old Order Changeth “Gone is gone, and no Jew will ever lend upon it,” says the old German proverb. Roam as he may from Church , to Church, either peripaletically or via media of the radio, never again will the, comfortable churchman rediscover his facile-minded, comfortable preacher ,of former days. Gone for ever is the time-honoured and palatable opiate . that was for so long served up to mankind under the label of religion. Gone for ever is the unctioug odour of sanctity once purchasable by the dropping into the collection plate of the weekly . half-crown or half-guinea, in ratio to . worldly status. Gone for ever is the , faith of our fathers, that .religion is t a matter that is settled, signed, sealed . and delivered for us before ever vru arc b<>m an(f that it is the exclusive business of the Church to attend to it for us. And since our preachers have ' brought, their preaching up to date, gone beyond recall is the once dearly cherished conviction that the groanings ■ and travailings of a world constantly in labour over the birth of the incessant change demanded by the law of evolution are no concern of the comfortable churchman and may lawfully be loft to the ministration of men who arc paid to look after such jobs. The Übiquitous Finger In a vain search for the soporific for which his soul is yearning, the advocate of life on the old-fashioned, water-tight compartment system whirls his radio dial, halting hopefully as he recognises the deeply authoritative tones of a “preacher” who until a • year or two ago was ever to be relied upon to deliver a sound and sensible , sermon up on the good old orthodox lines. “Let him take heed!” pro claims the speaker, “Let him take • heed, who reproaches the Church for r having a finger in every pie. Let him take heed, who complains that it is not the province of the Church to alter i the social order. L say to such a man: If it be not the duty of Christianity to cleanse the Augean stable of world inequality, then Christianity has outlived its usefulness.” The comfortable churchman groans in spirit and hastily spins the dial. Ah, here is a | voice he knows and loves. Now will he hear comfortable truisms and soothing platitudes. “Men and women arc . tired of the half-truths that have been • fed to them for centuries past by those > who have been presumed to be the i repositories of wisdom, enlightenment . and spiritual inspiration,” thunders ; the familiar voice in unfamiliar theme. | “Men and women know to-day that to repaint the pump is no adequate [ method of purifying the water in the well. If Christianity is to be regarded I as a powerful human force instead of as a pitiable human farce, she must have action to show in addition to words.” The comfortable churchman > mops his brow and hits the numbers up. IDown “from the skies” floats a voice he has not before heard. “If Jesus Christ were on earth to-day, he ! would be the greatest revolutionary ( among us!” ring the clarion tones. “He was a Man Who scorned to make ' good his own case by bludgeoning the t arguments of Ips opponents. Instead, he got out into the world of the people, the world of the down and . out’s, the, workless, the sick, the sorI’ rowing and the outcast; and He i workcil for democratic equality among all peoples in a way that. Christians ] nowadays are afraid and ashamed to j imitate! If the Church is to follow in , the footsteps of -Christ, it must get outside of its own walls ami give its full strength and power to the succour ; of the poor and the helpless.’’ Why? Nel a pulpit in New Zealand; not a pulpit in the whole democratic world but now erupts the flame of practical 1 Christianity. The teachings of the Man of Galilee, for so long cribb’d, ! cabin’d and confin’d as the exclusive possession of the, pious, are now the everyday law ami canon of the scientist, the economist and the statesman. In the long history of an ever-chang-ing world, never before has so nearly

unanimity been reached on matters vitally affecting the welfare of the great masses of the people; on the prevention of war, on the prevention of disease, of poverty and of all other crime. The teachings of this Man have been weighed in the balance of the present world crisis and have been discovered to be sound science by the scientist, sound economies by the economist, good politics by the statesman and ethical policy bv tin* humanitarian. Is it, then ,a coincidence that His teachings thus meet the needs of every diverse class of thinker, student

and worker? Is it surprising that the Church, armed to the teeth with His clear and colourful exposition of the whole duty of man, has flung herself into the fray at the side of the scientist the economist and all units of the social structure hi a grim determination that the principles of Christianity shall at last be made the practical politics of the day. By having a linger in every pic the Church is doing the work and the will that Jesus prayed should be done in earth as it is already done in Heaven.—Yours as ever,