VOICE OF THE WORLD

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 122, 19 November 1932, Page 18

VOICE OF THE WORLD

"If wo broke all our Victorian stained

glass, made all our Church churches palaces of fresh Attendance, air, light, and glorious colour, shortened our services by half, demolished our pews, and interned our vergers, the non-church-goer would still not come to church for the simple reason that the idea of there being any duty in the matter has not so much as occurred to him," writes Professor N. P. Williams in the ''Manchester Guardian." "He assumes that church-going is for those who like it, like opera-going; and organised religion (outside the Koinan Catholic Church) has been disposed to acquiesce in this view, and to entreat and coax him into ■likmg.it, instead of telling him bluntly that it.is the duty of a baptised Christian to assist at the public corporate worship of the Christian Church on the Lord's Day, whether he happens to 'like'lt or not. Church conferences have spent much time in discussing the question, 'Why do not men come to church?' but they have not made much progress/nor will they until they have faced and made up their minds about the previous question: 'Why should men'—or women either, for that matter—' como to church?' Is it a duty in the full and solemn sense of the word, the omission of which is, at the least, a grave moral failure? Or is it a matter of porsonal* taste and inelina-

tion?. If the Church authorities do not feel that they are prepared to sound the note of inexorable duty in the matter, the practice of church-going is likely in course of time to lapse into desuetude."

Referring to Lord Lothian's statement

that the "die-hard The Indian mind opposing the new Problem. Indian Constitution was

" a small section, but one which seemed for the time being to have enlisted the formidable support of Mr. Winston : Churchill,"'Lord Sumner writes:—"lt is the case that Mr. Churchill has publicly given support to the criticisms and resistance with which the Government's plans have been met by an .eminent and conspicuous group of retired Indian civil servants. It is for these men that I feel bound to protest; Mr. Churchill can amply defend himself. They have spent long lives in the service of India, in administrative, judicial, and military capacities, from the lowest to the highest gradeß. They have passed more years in India than Lord Lothian has weeks. Their honours and their work have been alike conspicuous. If they do not know India, who does? If their opinions are not.'of value to the English people, whose are? They have retired; they have nothing to gain; what they have t« lose is, as they fear, that India which they have helped to make and long have loved. Are we to be told that the Indian equivalent of these men is to be found in those persons in India who have .entertained, taught, and employed the spirit of civil disobedience? Civil disobedience is anarchy, prudently carried out with an eye to''personal safety.first.' The case against these Englishmen, ia that, after supporting the law and-maintaining order in India, regardless of their personal safety, they presume to disagree with Lord Lothian; that they.even oppose his Government's policy, and venture to trouble the complacence of English" public life with warnings against official haste and rashness."

A revival of music, dancing, and act'

ing as a natural part Art. in of every-day village English Villages, life is envisaged from developments which are taking place in the rural parts of England. In recent years there has been a _ revival in rural crafts and industries; now there is a growing tendency to revive villago music and drama to the standards it held in medieval times, when cultural activities were normal phases of village community life (says the "Christian Science Monitor"). The movement receives considerable impetus from the Carnegie United Kingdom Trustees, who provide a fund for the encouragement of music and drama in the villages. But the revival is also a phase of present-day tendencies, for the interest in rural arts inclines to outpace any organised efforts to develop it. In Gloucestershire music is developing among villagers to such an extent that children are , even making their own instruments. Pipes "and viols are being made by children, who then learn to play them. The instruments are made from bamboo, enamelled and coloured.

The young modernist came in conflict

■with the older modernModernists in ist at the conference of Conflict. Modern Churchmen at

■ Bristol. The form of .Chwcch. service aroused the controvert

The older modernist was represented by Dr. F. C. Burkit, of Cambridge, who, in discussing the Beformation and divine worship, said that the Bishops' book rejected by the House of Commons in 1928 was an attempt to please those, who ascribed particular holiness or potency to the sacred elements, not by going back to the Roman Mass or to Cranmer's first prayer book, but by mixing up our English consecration with forms derived from the Greek. We were in a new age, and innovations and important changes were being called from both responsible and irresponsible' quarters. "Our first and most pressing duty as English Churchmen," he said, " is to understand what we have got, and not to .change until we fully realise what we must give up if we attempt to fall into line with other ■ churches, whether reformed or unreformed." The Eev. M. D. Dunlop, tutor of Kipon Hall, then made his demand for sweeping changes. He daclared that the Prayer Book was "ambiguous, no Jonger native to us, and a barrier between us and the evangelisation of this country." They had to find a service which would express the changes that had taken place. He supposed there was not a clergyman present who'accepted, for example, the whole of the marriage service, "If you eliminate all that you must not do in the marriage service, you will find

out very much quicker what you ought to do," he said. If, he added, they found out what was in the minds of the ordinary men and women and produced a book native to-their present needs, he believed that they would have the whole of. England with them at once. '

A report _of the Oxford City Council makes the following quoDirecting tation from Pollock's Affairs. "Essays in the Law":—

Experience has shown during.quite three centuries of English life1 that committees are, on the whole, the least cumbrous and the most flexible organs of almost every sort of common business and common interests. Like all human instruments, they have their weak | points and their besetting risks. If it is too large, a committee may degenerate into officialism; if it ;is too small, it may be captured by a despot; in the latter case the evil is less. For in a society ruled^by a small committee we can at least know who is master, whereas.under a large committee, with fluctuating-attendance and an inert majority, this knowledge is often hardly attainable except by those in the secretary's,private confidence. If the secretary himself does iiot know, which is a possible though not frequent case, anarchyis not far off. Industry, vigilance, and judgment are needful in this as in other forms of civilised sscial action, if institutions are to remain efficient for their purpose. Nor is the part:of tact and.good offices to be forgotten, especially by chairmen! An engine without steam will not run at all, but^it is no less true that without oil it 'will run disastrously.

In his book, "The Future of East and

„' : West," Sir Frederick China's Whyte explains that in Problem, its abstract terms the

Chinese problem, is far' simpler than that of India. Chinese life is human in' the European sense of the word, but it has been static to a degree difficult for a European to comprehend.: An agricultural society, whoso way of life has been based on and limited by the family, looked to an autocracy to give it such cohesion as it needed. No and again the autocracy failed in its function and was then replaced by another of,like kind. Of political reform, of attempts to cure or minimise the evils inherent in the system, there has been no trace until now. At first sight, then, China is called upon to do no more than, take the easy step from despotism to constitutionalism, but Sir Frederick explains why this step has proved too much for practical statesmanship. The stages of development- which for Europeans are represented by the words renaissance^, democracy, ai^d industrialism, have come upon China all at once and have brought chaos. To Sun Vat-sen the line, of progress lay through militarism and tutelage, to constitutional government; but owing to the narrow spirit of the Kuomintang what should have been the second stage' has slipped back into a degraded version of the first. Sir Frederick notes the appeal Which the idea of a Five Year Plan must needs make to a country in the condition of modern China, but also dwells on Chinese appreciation of the disinterested help given by the League. There is, in fact, no longer any question in China of resistance to Western ideas; the question is rather whether the centre from which they radiate shall J>e- Moscow or Geneva.