WEAKENED MORALS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 47, 18 November 1937, Page 6

WEAKENED MORALS

-Fress Association.)

Cleric Condemns SemiPaganism

(By Telegraph-

AUCKLAND, Last Night. "Tke most ominous symptoms in tke realm of pubiie morals to-day is the widespread departure from tke observance of religion," said tke Rev. E. D. Patckett, - in - opening the annual Methodist District Synod to-day. "A state of semi-paganism weakens the moral fibre of tke nation. Real Teligion and a lofty moral standard go kand in liand. When a nation exhausts" its spiritual capital, it lowers its power of resistance to tke inroads of moral infection." He added tkat, witk natural pride in our country and its people, one hesitated to review some of the recentlypublisked evidence of moral drift, y-t to open up tkis festering sore was tke quickest way to its kealing. "The report of the committee set up by the Government to i'nvestigate the problem of criminal abortion constitutes a sad chapter in the story of widespread national delinquency," said Mr. Patchett. "Looldng beneath the surfaee it becomes apparent that the crux of the problem is the Jiome. A Chrdstian home is the best place on earth for character building. To enlist the.praetical sympathy of the womanhood of the country gives the greatest promise of solving this many-sided problem. W,e need legislative action, but a more urgent need is a quiekened public conscience and the lifting of the moral ideal. "In a eorrupt society man cannot escape the blame, but it is one of the ahief glories of woman that in the moral realm the race is fundamentally in her k'eeping." After referring to other soeial evils, Mr. Patchett said there was a need in the Dominion for a branch of the British Pubiie Morality League to give coherenco and unity to the growing voliime of Opinion in favour of pubiie action. •"