The Padre's Message

Observation Post, Volume 1, Issue 3, 5 June 1942, Page 4

The Padre's Message

A friend of mine with a decided gift of eloquence was once addressing. a large audience of children on the subject of temperance. The youngsters were intensely interested as each point the argument was driven home with consummate skill and telling illustration. Like a good orator who is out to propound his audience and move them to the point of decision, my friend had reserved his best and most telling illustration until the last. Having reached the climax of the argument with his hearers hanging on every word he spoke he was about to clinch the whole matter when up spoke his young son sitting in the front row of eager listeners. “Yes, I know, Dad-; I have heard that one before. This young, hope) ful had turned a grand climax into an anti-climax much to the merriment ,of the listeners and the discomfiture of his eloquent father. However, history has kindly drawn the veil over what may or may not'have-happened afterwards as between father and son.

Yet there is an attitude towards re-, ligion to-day very much like that whenever we are confronted with the spiritual and moral values of life, the tendency is to’ adopt that attitude, which says in effect, yes, “Oh, I have heard that one before.’ It’s the same old story. And, anyhow, what good has religion done in the world? When one is; discussing this question of religion one, of course, needs to be quite clear as to what they have in view. There is a good deal of time and steam wasted in fulminating against re-' ligion that in reality is no religion. ■ A commercial traveller was once journeying on the stage coach to a certain country town in England. AsYhey approached the town he,. was amazed by the number of church spires that came into view. Turning to the driver of the coach, he said, “They sure must* be ; very, good people in this place; look at all those spires.” “No, not good,” said the coachman, “merely religious.” ',7 There is. a world of difference between that type of religion that tries to satisfy itself by keeping on the right side God with cold and formal observance and the religion of the Old and New Testament, “pure and undefiled which requires us to love God with all our heart and mind and our, neighbour as ourselves.

We are hearing a great deal ‘to-day about new world orders. In this country the Christian churches have united in a campaign ■ for a Christian order. The real thing behind this campaign is not ’ that the Christian church is going to ; lay down the blueprint of the new economic and social order, but that the church is calling men everywhere back to the great spiritual and moral basis of —back to God the Father and His love in Jesus Christ. Yes, fellows, an ’ old story; you • have heard it before. You will hear it again because it is the only way of salvation for mankind. Christ is the world’s hope and only Saviour. It is not that we have had . too much religion; it is that we have not had: enough'of the real thing. John Middleton Murry says: “Those who profess and call themselves Christians today must be really convinced that Christianity is the clue to all man’s doing if that doing shall 1> 1 righteous in the home— the bus'iicss of the individual and the conduct '

the nation.” “Democracy,” he says, “cannot exist without Christianity . ... 1 Christianity created it, breathed into it I the breath of life and inspires it from day to day and year to year. ’ ’ ” i. It is indeed an old story, yet the most modern story in the world, the Cross of Calvary and its infinite sacrifice for. us all of the Christ who hrut.es men, and men divine.” i What shall this new order be? The Christian church challenges every virile younp man to make it a Christian order. Bo “let us drop the deeds of darkness and put on the armour of light” and win this the hardest battle of all the battle of life. ■ Your Padre, MURRAY A. GOW. The findiny of Australian beer caps in Jap bombs dropped on Australians would come under scrap irony.