THE CHURCH AND THE AGE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1675, 15 February 1913, Page 4

THE CHURCH AND THE AGE.

jThe report of the Welfare of tho Church Committee presented to tho Methodist Conference yesterday is a dcoply-interesting document. The present is undoubtedly a most anxious time for all branches' of the Christian Church. The very foundations of society are being shaken, and a flood of now ideas of a revolutionary character in religion, philor 6ophy, 'science, and sociology are compelling the serious attention of the _ • leaders of modern thought.It is a time for tho. "romoving of those things that aro, shaken, that those things which are l not shaken may remain."' Every institution and every belief, however time-hon-oured, is being challenged, and called upon to justify itself. Nothing is 'too sacred for criticism. It is little wonder that timid people who cling to tho,old paths are.seriously alarmed, and feel that' the futuro is shrouded in gloom. But tho outlook lis not really so black as these pebplo seem to think. Signs of tho dawn of tho new ago are not wanting, and there are good reasons for believing that religion will play as great a part in the future as in the past. Its outward.forms and modes of expression may bo changed, but as long as the spiritual instincts of mankind remain,_. it must always be a great factor in the development of the human' raco.

The rational optimism of the Rev. C. H. Laws, in his address to tho Conference on tho outlook from the point of view of the Churches, has much to justify it in recent tendencies of modern thought. He did not pretend for a moment that there was no cause for anxiety.. That would have been foolish, but he is justified in saying that . ..;•;.■*,■■

thoy wore ■' coming into an age when they would : liavo greater opportunist tor noblo work: than ever before. Ik thought th«t ho would like to dio now,. and commence his ministry fifty years hence. The indications were for a fuller, larger, and freer conception of tho Kingdom of God than ever before Tho pendulum' was swinging from materialism to spiritualism. Every department, of thought was making for the recasting of ideas on. a spiritual basis.. In 1871 Professor Tyndall said: "In matter T seo promise and potency ,of all forms of terrestrial'Jife." Professor Brooks twenty-four years later reversed the saying: "In life I see the promise and potency of all forms of terrestrial matter." They had. to fear now, not,materialism, ~ but tho swing of the; pendulum in tho other . direction. It was tho duty of tho Church to interpret this age to Itself; avoiding both tho fascination of new and illdirected heresies and unreasoned conservatism.: ,-■. ;...',,.

This is tie right spirit in which to face tho future. Many of tho foremost modern thinkers fully recogniso tho_ fundamental importance ot religion from the social point if view. This is strongly insisted on by Dr. Chatterton-Hih, of the University of Geneva, in his recent book on tho "Sociological Value of Christianity." He points out that tho work of tho French school of sociologists, with ProfessorDitrkheim at its head, has been particularly valuable in this respect. Dr. Hill adds:

"Par from being a mere individual phenomenon, religion appears to ns a product of- social life, as a fundamental factor of social development. Religion as M. Durkheim justly observes,- contains 'in potentia' all tho various elements which, dissociated and combined in a thousand ways, givo rise to the diverso manifestations of social life." In its, long history tho Christian Church has weathered fiercer storms than the present, and it is not likely to suffer wreck now that the need for it, both from the social and individual standpoint, is probably greater than ever before.