BIG QUESTIONS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 246, 11 July 1919, Page 5

BIG QUESTIONS

WHO WOULD TAKE THE PLACE OF THE CHURCH? Dr. itdhnstfimm, Professor if Iher.modynamics at the University nf Amsterdam, asked and answered 1 some interesting questions in a speech to the Dutch branch of the Student Christian Federation (printed at length in the "Constructive Quarterly"). ■ "For. mo something of tho significance of the church began to dawn for tho f rst time when, after having been bred in the town, I came into somewhat closer contact with life in the country. For in the country, with its simpler relations in overy respect, tho meaning of the Church fs a great deal moro apparent to everybody. And qustions like these forced themselves urgently upon me:— "What would becomo of spiritual life in our country if everywhere tho Church steeples should lie removed from these fields and all the parsonages should be turned into nlain villas? Would it mean a gain o"r a loss? Who would take the place of the Church as the guardian of piety and tradition? 'Who would keep the torch of religious light burniug, and who would hand it down from generation ttr_ generation ? "Am" I lie more urgently these questions forced themselves upon n.e, the more keenly did I feel, though with amazement, perhaps with soni9 reluctance, what answer had to be given. "J felt myself confronted with the bewildering question, to whom did I myself owe what I knew To bo my luost precious possession? "It is true that in my whole life ] had not come in direct contact in any way with any Church. But I had been allowed to draw profusely, from the abundance of the spiritual treasures of mankind; by attending to the lessons faught by tlio greatest spirits I had succeeded in freeing myself of the materialistic and atheistic views which in the days of my boyhood I had admired r,s the deepest wisdom. I had by all kinds of inscrutable ways como into contact with the Gospel, which has really permeated our society as a leaven much more Lhan friend and foe generally realise. T have learnt to see thai we human beings are not detached units, but that we have our places in large F;ionlaaeously growing communities, that wo owe what is besb and greatest in our lives to tho immediate or mediate contact with them, and that we languish, decline, mid wither when we are cut off from this contact."