IS OUR CIVILISATION A FAILURE ?

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 5, 6 November 1891, Page 23

IS OUR CIVILISATION A FAILURE ?

(Liverpool Catholic Itims, September 14.)

There have betn men of eminent ability who have maintained that tue state of untaught savages i", on the woole, to be preferred to the geaenl can htun of numan beings in civilise 1 communities. The wickedness a-sociUe I witn civshsei life is, according to their contention, far m jre systematic and repulsive than the vice which accompin es unadulterated savagery, whilst the natural virtues are much rao r e fuiiy developed atruugst the swages th^n amongst civilised p opl s. Taj argument is altogether untenable it the contrast b>> ina'itu'ed between the uncivilised p igan and the educated an i sincere <J lnstiao. ; but it c innot be denied that even the manners of barbarians iff ird no parallel for some of the habits and cus'omi by which the tuoat civilised nvious «rd disgraced. Aad we m this country, looking at the fentul crimes whici .»re constantly occurring in our large centres of pop il ition, miy well a>-k ourselves how far does our Chris'ianily profit us. Fat' er Nugent, speaking at a meeting in the Rotunda Lecture Hall, Liverpool, on Monday evening, called attention t > the apmlliug fact that street profligacy of the most loa'hsome kind id increasing to an enormous extent m Liverpool The streets are infested by girls, many of whom even at a t nder age have b'com; adepts ia the moat debasing forms of depravity. The Criminal Law Amendment Act seems to be already pretty much a dead letter : the hideous evil gro*s and exteuda almost without let or hindrance.

If we turn to other stains on the nation*! character we are Dot the less shocked and alarmed. The reports in oar morning and evening papers briug out in detail only too complete the horrors and excesses of which our everyday Ufa affords the spectacle. Drunkenness may be said to stalk through the land, gathering its victims by the hundred and thousand. The period of comparative prosperity which the country has recently been enjoying has added immensely to the number of those falling under the spell of the liquor demon, and the scenes enacted on the last Bank Holiday might well be called Walpurgis Night orgies. It is needles 9to say that coroners have been kept busy, and that verdicts of " Death due to Alcoholic Poisoning " have been numerous. At Leeds, for instance, four young men were found lying insensible in the neighbourhood of Dunn's-yard, Off-street, on Friday Afternoon, and two of them, tome time after having been removed to their homes, died from the effects of gindrinking. Thus has the death-roll been swelling in all our large towns by persons who have exercised no command over their passion for alcoholic Btimulants. If we consider the nature of the murders the circumstances of which have of late been brought to light, it is difficult to imagine how they could be surpassed in fiendish atrocity. The cold-blooded cruelty with which they have been perpetrated could not certainly be exceeded by the savage in his most reckless moments. Then we have brutal prizs-fights encouraged by mtn in high social positions and held under distinguished patronage. In a degrading'exhibition of this kind, given at Longsight.near Manchester, afewdarsago, the encounter resulted in the death of one of the pugilists. With the account of this ghastly incident before us, it is not surprising to find Mr R. H. Sherard maintaining in the columns of the Pall Mall Gazette that " Your morbid, unimaginative AngloSaxon delights in blood, delights in the sufferings of others," and that in this respect Great Britain enjoys a marked pre-eminence over France. Again, what could be more inconsistent with the existence of true Christian civilisation than the number of Buicides chronicled in our press ? Not only men and women in their prime, but even children and people who have reached the very limits of old age, do not hesitate to incur the guilt of taking away the lives which God gave them. Of'en the casses are really trivial. Oae saoo's the »irl who has refused him mirriagj and then destroys himself ; another winds up a fit of dis-ipa'ion by blowing out his brains ; yet another kills himself through sheer weariness of life, and so on. To the crimes which come under the heid? we have ment'oned, ad i the mi y other offences di-closei at our Courts of Assize, Div >rce and Bankruptcy, and it must be adinitte 1 that however low the Sivage may be in the scile of civilisainn. h s vikness ca r i scarce y be greater than that displayed by some of those wh 3 live amidst the ai vantages of civilisation.

The absence of a sense of the obliga'ions of religion is really at the root of much of the crime and immorality which g) to njuke up the records of our police courts. Pareats fail to attach due weight to their responsibility, and the y mn<z, as so in as they leave school, dritt into evil coarse?. Temptatuns abound, and the downward path is proverbially easy, ihe public-house, with its doors ever open, is a school wherein the >oung are familiarised with vice. Those wno frequent thtse haunts of misery soou 1033 their self-respect : and ia the case of feonles e<p-cnlly, when t , is s-if >guml of virtue is onca lost, toey will mpilly plunge into aay excess, no matter how revolting. The remedy must come fiooi religious and moral teaching. People cannot be made sooer or virtuous by Acts of Parliament. The terror of the policeman may, in isolated insuiices, check evil-doers, but it will not inspire feelings of purity, honesty, uprightness, and humanity. The cure must bo effected by a thorough improvement in theeducition of the youn*. Not only must the moral groundwork be well laid durng school-life, but more sy=tematic efforts must be made to kepp our youth <>f buth sexes well in touch with their religious guides wben they are no longer under the direction of the schoolmaster, and to cause them to recognise that their welfare depends on the honest discharge of the social duties they are called upon to perform end on fidelity to religiouß principles. Evening classes, innocent recreations, personal visitation, and every other useful method of protecting our youth from the pitfalls which surround them should be zealously employed if a true moral reformation is to be accomplished, and if our civilisation is to be a success.