CHURCH AND EMPIRE.

Hokitika Guardian, 5 August 1927, Page 4

CHURCH AND EMPIRE.

A pioneer Empire cannot find its proper compliment in a stay-at-home Church. In the last resort Empire and Church are judged in the Dominions, India and the Colonies not by the activity of their missionary work, devoted and necessary as that may he, but by the ordinary day-to-day actions ol men and women ol British descent who call themselves Christians. Particular emphasis was laid on this point both by the Secretary for Dominion Affairs and by the Governor of Kenya, and the same vital truth appears again and ami in in the valuable and inspiring renort of the Missionary Council of the Munch Assembly. Every member of the white population, said Sir Edward Clrigg, is a representative of our civilisation. On them depends for good or ill the opinion which the non-Christian races form of ilic ways and standards of Christianity. H, therefore, the Chinch is 1,, be faithful to its duty in South Africa and other parts of the Empire, it must think not oni'y of its missions, but also ot our own people settled I here, by whom the future ol' ( ui-iiau civilisation will be made or marred. It. must remember also the peculiar temptations and difficulties to which on the fringes of the Empire the v, biio population i- exposed on account i f ihe loneliness of their lives, and must do all in its power to bring to them the spiritual help which the frailty of human nature demands. Times.”