BETTER MEN.

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16817, 8 June 1926, Page 9

BETTER MEN.

WELFARE OF YOUTH. CIIURCITS IMPOTENCE. "The supreme need of to-day is better men and women; while we are making better doctors, better engineers and better tradesfolk, we arc not making better men," said Rev. It. B. S. Hammond, in an address before the Presbyterian General Assembly at Sydney, in connection with the AYclfarc of Youth demonstration. Better men were not made in the church but in the home, Mr Hammond said. There was never a time when homes were so well furnished, and when people were so little in them. There was never a time when they needed to focus so much on the home. Never was evil so well organised. The temptations to young people were greater than they were 25 years ago. That was a call to the church to do more for them than she had done 25 years ago. In the last three years, Mr Hammond stated, 330 little girls, between the aces of 12 and 15, had become mothers in Australia. That revealed 330 boys, and behind tliem twice that number of homos, together with an impotent church, that had not been able to protect them. In the same period, 5389 girls had become mothers before they were married. That involved ten thousand people, and represented a shadow over every home. In a single year, 42,252 children had been boarded out in Australia, back of whom was the absenco of a home, and indolent parents. These children had never known the love of home and family. They were simply put, in homes tnat were represented by the money they brought. "We should pray that the day will come when the church will be big enough to take tlie.se children and give them a better home," said Mr Hammond. It was the church's duty not lo think too much of those within her fold, but to let their range go out to those who were wandering outside. One of the mistakes they had made was in not always emphasising who were the real enemies. Drink, gambling, and immorality were not the greatest menace, but laziness, cowardice, and selfishness. The home in the early days of a child's life, was infinitely more than the church, and the need of the church was a call to family worship in the home. They should demand also a social simplicity, especially in the home.