CHRISTIAN ECONOMICS

Hokitika Guardian, 1 December 1928, Page 3

CHRISTIAN ECONOMICS

“We must try and change men’s attitude to the acquisition of money. Lot us show them bow small a thing it is after all to acquire a fortune. It does not demand any of the higher qualities or mind or heart. Shrewdness is not exactly a Christian virtue. It takes a higher type of ability to write a beautiful hymn, or paint a beautiful picture, or preach a good sermon, than it does to make a mint of money. As a necessary corollary to the attitude of Jesus towards wealth we must teach Christian Economies. Christian Economies is as vital as Christian Ethics. Economies is not a positive science whose laws are fixed by nature. An economic law is just a description of the way men act in the ordinary business of life. If they acted differently the laws would he different. Buying in the cheapest market and selling in tiie dearest is not a law of nature, but a. statement of what you may expect men usually to do. The true end of economies is the wealth, the well-being of the whole community. Its first law is first, things first. We should rightly blame a mother who. to gratify her vanity, brought an evening dress before she bought a winter overcoat for her son, and a father who spent money on drink when his children were needing food. In the same way, we are hound to blame society for building luxurious hotels and palatial kinemns while thousands and thousands of its members are housed is dirty slums.”—Rev. B Smith, chairman of the Leeds Con"rational Union, at the Union Assem lily.