RELIGION AND POLITICS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1722, 12 April 1913, Page 22

RELIGION AND POLITICS.

' THE VOCATION AND DUTY OP CHRISTIAN MEN. In an address delivered nt the midday service at Bow Anglican Church. Cheapside, on February, 18, the Rev. P. N. A\agedtt, of Cambridge, mado an uncompromising defence of the political life as tho proper vocation and du;y of Christian St.' Paul's language, "Study_ to be quiet and to do your own business, tho preacher pointed out, v> as perfectly appropriate to the times and conditions in which ho was writing, but it could afford no sort of excuse for men to stand asido from public lifo to-day. Then there was a Caesar on the throne who held mens lives in' the hollow of his hand. "To-day we are tho Caesar Father Waggett declared, "wo aro responsible; we aro no>t lielpless. There are still many things dark and menacing and cruel. That is our concern. We must not live for ourselves. Let no man' hold back what Christ hath given him to know or Politics, the speaker admitted, were in a bad way—almost as bad as they could be; but sitill. neither side was quite as bad as the other'would had ono to suppose. Thero was no excuse for men tn keep out of politics throu?h fear of their corrupting influence. "A moral action and a Christian action,", lie continued, "does not become less moral or less Christian because i't involves a legislative enactment. National' evil can only be cured by national action, and national guilt can only be pureed by national repentanoe. All that God dees for men ho does through men. :"X count it only lessttnn tho blessing of having fouud religion," Father Watrgctt coaciuded, "for a man to find in political effort the means p£ uplifting his fellows and of serving his day and generation."