The Dominion SATURDAY, JUNE 10, 1911. THE CHURCHES AND THE WOULD.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1150, 10 June 1911, Page 4

The Dominion SATURDAY, JUNE 10, 1911. THE CHURCHES AND THE WOULD.

No long time ever passes in any British country without a rc-cliscus-sion of the time-worn problem, "Why do not people go to church?" or even without ,the appearance of some volume which, if it cloes not directly state the problem, is yet intended to solve it. We have called it a "problem," but is there really any problem at all, any situation over which ecclesiastical authority should become alarmed? There is a legend that King James I having asked why a salmon could be placed in a brimming water-vessel without causing it to ovcrllow, a number of scientists argued at much length and disputed fiercely concerning the phenomenon. The argument ended when onO i cautious doctor who had said nothing broke his silence to say he "doubted the fact." An equally welcome intrusion upon the wearisome controversy over the abstention of the "worker" from churchgoing— a phenomenon that has distressed tho braver churchmen and sent the chicken-hearted amongst them hel-ter-skelter into an anxiety to propitiate the deserters—has been made by a well-known and deservedly admired Otago churchman in an articlo in the Dunedin Star. He admits that the situation is not what one would desire: "The Established Church [in England], which likes to think of itself as the National Churchy has only 7 per cent, of the population in its membership. And the greater portion of these belong to the classes that toil not, neither do they spin. The great industrial masses are outside her ranks, and, for the most part, outside any church connection at all." Having examined two new books bearing upon the subject—one by Bishop Welldon, ancl one containing the views of a number of leading writers and thinkers—he was unable to find anything fresh in the causes assigned for _ non-churchgoing. The only opinion that needs to be quoted here is that of Me. Ramsay Macdonald. He thinks the working man docs not go to church because the church cloes not go to the working man. It is, identified in the main with a system of things that squeezes out the spiritual ideals of humanity: "Society, with its materialist and debasing pursuits after wealth and folly, and the weariness it imposes upon the people engaged in its task of industrial production ancl competition, makes the spiritual life difficult. . . . Men lose their spiritual appetites when life crushes too heavily upon them." This is only a polite and dignified rendering of the language and arguments of the everyday Labour orator here and in other countries. One can respect the man who says he does not go to church because he cannot accept church teaching or believe what churchmen believe, but, as wo have always held, there is something repellent in the man who pretends that he has a good practical motive in staying away from Church, namely, his sorrow at the failure of the Church to deal with the real evils of the world. As often as not this sort of person will go on to say that the Church is the sleeping partner of "Mammon" ancl to indicate that his idea of a church is an institution with strong views on shorter hours and higher pay, on the nationalisation of industry, and on _ the necessity for persecuting non-union-ists. The southern writer to whom we have referred does not deal with this form of "Labour's case against the Church," but with Mn. Macdonald's statement of it: Supposo (ho says) this fear of poverty was removed, would tho spiritual appetite bo restored and quickened? Suppose tho working classes got all tho political and social reforms for which they aro struggling; supposo they got the sources of wealth—land, coal, gold—nationalised; suppose everybody lifted above the dread of want, and the ideal of Henry IV realised—"a fowl in every pot"—and also Mr. Chamberlain's desire'of "threeacres and a cow" attained—should we have tho millennium then? Would the spiritual appetito which Mr. Macdonald says is crushed out by poverty, or tho fear of it, be prodigiously increased? It is curious how people can think so when tho proof of tho opposito is written out in large capital letters before their eyes. Itavo tho rich men and women, .ihoso who arc raised far above tho fear of want, enormous spiritual appetites? Is it not tho very chargo made against them by tho working man that they aro devoid of this? Labour leaders aro never tired of showing up the immoralities of tho capitalist. Their wealth and their idleness curso them. And yet, by some strange twist of logic, thev arguo themselves into the belief that that which curses the wealthy would create and preserve a spiritual appetite amongst tho poor, if only they could get hold of it. But nothing will _ convince the demagogue that "spiritual appetito dopends on quite other things than

,t man's banking account." He may lie left to protest and denounce. The only good purpose, in discussing the question is the preservation of the faith of that section of the clergy which is ready, to take alarm, as if they were tho Government, at the muttering-; of the non-ehurchgoing "workers." That is what is in the mind o£ the writer in the Star, as it was in the mind of Bishop Julius when ho said at the citizenship meeting in connection with the recent Methodist Conference in Christchurch: "The Church would never better the world by making religion cheap. It could not do its work in tho world's ways. The world worked from without, and the Church must work from within. The Church must not seek to be popular with the world." The same note was struck in the very fine address by the llev. I. Sarginson to the annual meeting of the Congregational Union in Dunedin last February: "No doubt great is democracy, with its majorities and its high hopes; but it should be taught that Jesus Christ is no poor suppliant for its patronage." And the writer in the Star asks:

Is it not time for someone to ask: Where is the authority for supposing that tho churches ever would be filled? Has it ever teen so in the past? Wc talk of the good old times. When were they? History knows nothing of them. . . . In all these sporadic discussions about non-churchgaing it is assumed that becauso tho crowds aro not in the churches that therefor© the churchcs have failed. But what if it might not be tho other way about ?

And he recalls Archbishop Magee's statement: "The Church must be known by her work, but wc must take care that wc understand what that work is, or we shall be unreasonably expecting from her that which she was not sent to do. Her work is warfare against evil everywhere, complete conquest over evil nowhere."