RELIGION TO-DAY

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 35, 4 November 1937, Page 6

RELIGION TO-DAY

Neglect Leads lo Decline in Morals THE CHURCHES' PROBLEM The effect of religion. 011 the thoughts and actions of tio people of the Doxaiaion, and the deterioration in morals when religion was neglected, were stressed by tlie Rev. George Eaurehson, of the Methodist Mission Board, in a xeeent address to memDers of tlie Hastings Methodist Chuxcli. * ' There is a group living in ntter dis■*regard of religion^ 13 said Mr Laurenson. About these \he church is far too complacent. We are only now beginning to Teap tlie results of an entirely secolar education. TMs is evident in the number of child delinquents in the Hominion. "There are settiements in the countiy in. which children and young people are growing up who have never attenfled a chureh or religioue meeting, and have frad no training in the things of God. They are coming into our towns g.nd cities, mariying and setting-up homes, and -- are the fruit of the present tendency to .drift away from church -life, . 1 'There 2s a thought fallacy rampant among people to-day that by evolution, things are improving. This is not so, unless people set themselves out with their whole hearts tp mahe it so, in Bpite df what' the crowd may say and "Another echema of thinking, present among certain workers in the coal-miuing toivns of the South Island, which church missionaries are finding a serious problem, is the seeking of 'freedom 3 as they term it, apart from the church. Supporters of the chtirch in these areas have had to hold on tc their faith in the face of hard and diffieult opposition, and, in some cases, persecution.5 ' Mr Laurenson said that, in the far south, there were many heroic men and women who were mahing great efforts t© establish church life and Sunday school facilities . for theix children. Their efforts called for the greatest a&miration.