THE FAITH THAT LIVES.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXI, Issue 12190, 11 June 1907, Page 4

THE FAITH THAT LIVES.

Ake we witnessing v dissolution or an evolution of the religion- li'fi avA -entimcnl '-" fiT Zvlercure do T'l-^nco h~= ns':ci a number of European thinkers to express their opinion. Two or three, in replying, shirk the question, like M. Jules Lemaitre, who professes that he knows nothing- about the matter, aud M. Fraucoi6 Coppee, who e.iy«s. "The single word 'Credo' shall, if you please, be my reply." £ir Charles Dilko observes that there is no such thing as a "mssolution" of ideas, and that the religious idea appears to be independent of the Church. The only view which commands anything approaching general agreement, we glean from an article in the Londou Tribune, is that there is a tendency towards a dissolution of religious forms, both in dogma, and organisaton, and a i«o leas marked evolution of religious ideas and sentiments. "We are witnesses," cays Count Romanones, "of two great conflicts; on the philosophic ground between clericals and anti-clericals. Social propoganda has carried with it the seeds of religious fermentation. The anti-clerical movement spreads in all countri**. France expels the congregation and separates the Churches from the State: England fights around the Education Bill; Germany revolts against the influence of the Catholic Ceutic; Russia tees the prestige of the Orthodox-Autocratic alliance broken; in Spain and Italy multitudes emancipated from tradition are faced by other multitudes who seek to maintain a secular ecclesiaeticiam incompatible with the full, lich, aud varied mind of modern civilisation. The phenomenon is produced, then, among thinkers, amoug the people, and in public life." And everywhere the Spanish statesman finds the same result: — "An evolution of the religious idea which makes the peoples more profoundly aud substantially Christian, an evolution of the religious sentiment which raises the people against the pretensions of Churches so constituted as to oppose this evolution for political ends and by political means." One has but to consider the popularity of the great religious organisations of the United States to realise how heavily theocratic pretensions lie upon the spiritual life of Europe. For us, set happily in this temperate clime, the. bittern«B of all controversies is allayed while, as we flatter ourselves, "freedom broadens down from precedent to precedent." But it can, the Tribune believes, be said throughout £he West in some measure that the religious spirit was never more living and übiquitous, never more rich in its content, or more influential upon the common life, than it i* to-day.