SPIRITUAL DECLENSION

Evening Star, Issue 19666, 20 September 1927, Page 11

SPIRITUAL DECLENSION

EVILS OF MODERN LIFE A STRONG INDICTMENT JSrECIAI. TO THE ‘ STAK.*] CHRISTCHURCH, September 19. An eloquent and forceful address on the evils of modern life was given by Commissioner J. Hay, in the Salvation Army Hall. Nations did not perish by pestilence, flood, lire, or drought, he said; but they did so by moral weakness and the prevalence of its offspring, vice. If New Zealand was to go upward in moral soundness, well-braced character, and security for children, then vigorous methods rather than the easy-going methods of to-day must obtain. The ideal citizen must be morally sound; every departure therefrom was a weakness, personally and nationally. The main peril was that of spiritual declension. The decline in church-going, the dwindling attendances at places of worship, neglect of the Bible all pointed to this. Mixed standards of convenience, rather than idgliteousness, followed this neglect of the Bible and worship. Sunday picnics and sport increasingly threatened us with the Continental Sunday. Gambling was increasing; the totalisator had not lessened betting, and crowds of young people were caught in the craze—some lor a joke, some to be like the crowd, and some for greed—but whatever the motive, the result was that wrong triumphed and character was weakened. The laxity of parental control was a fruitful source of evil. What education was doing on the one hand lack of moral discipline and fleshly control undid on the other. The records of libraries show an alarming lack of serious reading, and the wholesale adoptoin of fiction and sexual reading constituted a real peril and danger to the young community. The spirit of Communism was devilish, particularly in its attempt to deprave and mislead children’s minds, as illustrated in its catechism and Sunday school programme. _ The evil influence of the modern picture shows was a grave danger. Legislators, magistrates, schoolmasters. and parents were often alarmed at tho stuff passed by the censor.