GODLESS?

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 225, 23 September 1929, Page 8

GODLESS?

CONDITIONS ON "COAST." 'HOSTILITY TO RELIGION. EVANGELIST'S STORY. COMMUNIST SUNDAY SCHOOLS. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) HAMILTON, tins day. Startling statements about the conditions obtaining in some of the mining areas of the West Coast of the South Island were made from the pulpit of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church last night by the Picv. H. G. Gilbert, who has just returned from an evangelistic mission on the West Coast. Mr. Gilbert emphasised that he was not speaking about the whole of the Coast, but he said that in some districts there were hundreds of families growing up in a state, not of indifference, but actual antagonism, toward religious things. They would have nothing to do with the Church, Bible, hymn book or anything pertaining to Christianity. They did not honour the Sabbath in the least, but devoted it to their sports and athletic fixtures. Public houses and picture shows were kept open without any hindrance. The police were helpless to enforce the law, which was openly defied, for the men regarded the Church, the police and similar institutions as being upholders of the capitalistic system, to which they were bitterly opposed. The children in Communist; Sunday schools were given blasphemous instruction, and taught to ridicule and deride things which Christian people held sacred.

At funerals, Mr. Gilbert said, there was absolutely no religious service. The body was placed in the grave, somebody might say a few words on "brotherhood," a selection was played on the bagpipes and the gathering dispersed.

Mr. Gilbert said he had understood conditions on the Coast were bad, but ho was appalled to find them as they were. He did not think the people were to be altogether blamed. They were descendants of two or three generations who had lived under undesirable conditions, and they had a wrong conception of things, but there was a problem and it had to he faced. An effort would have to be made to give these people a new idea of life, to give them a vision, for the lack of which they would perish.