SOCIAL EVILS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 894, 20 September 1910, Page 3

SOCIAL EVILS.

PULPIT REFERENCE BY THE REV. G. K. AITKEN. At the local Presbyterian Church on Sunday night the Rev. G. K. Aitken, speaking from the text: “Take these things hence” (John 11. 16), made some references to certain evils which are threatening the purity and morality of the people in this fair land. The preacher said : There are conditions in the life of every community diametrically opposed to the happiness, purity, or righteousness of its individual life, that would slink away in guilty consciousness if opposed and vigorously presented in the full light of truth and honesty. Apathy, he said, is doing more to assist and extend evil influences than perhaps anything else. New Zealanders are somewhat proud of their fair land, with its advanced political enactments and social life, of which in the providence of God they have been made stewards but, notwithstanding the fairness of the land, the liberties of citizenship, the comforts of social life, the safety of life and property, there are evils existing in our midst that makes decency blush and virtue hide her face for shame. The revelations of a Minister of the Crown backed by the testimony of the highest medical authorities of the laud have brought under public notice the hideous character of a disease which is sapping the heart’s blood of our manhood, and whose damnable consequences will bring suffering a scourge upon the generations that are yet to be. And we stand shocked, bat silent, if not indifferent. From the evidence before me, continued the preacher, evidence that I cannot mention here, it is high time that we were grasping tightly in our hands the knotted cords of truth and knowledge, to form a lash to drive into the darkness of hell the immoral devilries of our own time and land. “Take these things hence.” It is high time that we fathers and mothers, and ministers and elders, Christian and non-christiau people were brought to realise the duty that devolves upon every one of us in our individual sphere and influence to enter into God’s Temple —that is our own hearts, our families, our social sphere, our church life, our civil institutions —and drive therefrom the devil’s factors that are polluting the temple of the Holy Ghost —man made in the image of God. Are you shrugging your shoulders and saying in your heart, the duty is not yours ? That suffering must follow and deservedly follow upon sin ? That every transgression of law must bring its own punishment ? Are you so callous to suffering that you have no thought or consideration for the innocent that are compelled to suffer with the guilty ? I tell you, my friends, it is not in social organisation or State legislation that we are to find the cure for the evil that is darkening our doors and filling mothers’ hearts with shame and sorrow, but by every individual of us realising our personal duty in the direction of raising a high, noble, pure, and patriotic public sentiment. We have excluded the Bible from our public schools, and we are beginning to reap the consequences. We have excised from our school curriculum the highest moral instructor in the world, and are surprised to find a crop of tares in the field where we thought we were going to reap splendid wheat. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” We have been sowing the wind and do we regard it as strange if we are now reaping the whirlwind. I give it to you, my friends, in the strongest terms I can employ, that the cleansing of the temple is your duty and mine. It is more than time that we should set aside a kind of false modesty that closes its ears, and shuts its eyes to the sound and sight of corrupt practices and conduct, and call things by their true name and launch our indignation against them. We must resolutely set our faces and use our tongues to stir up a healthy public opinion against the things that we know are breaking down the highest standards of virtue and honour, that were once such highly esteemed characteristics of the British race, and help to lift the moral standard to a pure and healthy altitude. Referring to the gambling evil, the preacher said recently one of our Judges drove home to the public mind the curse that was making itself felt, iu the gambling spirit pervading society. In his official capacity, creating a public sentiment, and by his individual influence doing his share towards the cleansing of the temple. He thanked God that we have some men in high places who are ready and willing to use their authority to impress us with the character of the evils threatening our safety, and forcing our legislature to move

in the direction of enforcing more stringent laws. The preacher thought it a deplorable feature of our public institutions that, when consideration was being given to this very matter a Minister of the Crown should have the temerity to declare in the parliament of the people that he had gambled all his life and would do so to the end. We esteem candour, and respect opposition, but should have nothing but condemnation for a sentiment expressed in the light of the facts elicited. I have no hesitation in saying that every man and woman who values honesty and liberty, who esteems character and principle, who loves honour and righteousness, should, unbiassed by party considerations or expediency, cast their vote deliberately and sacredly against the men who could use a high office to lend influence to practices universally recognised as being detrimental to the highest and best interests of the State. The time has fully come for us to take sides in this great and important cause. legislative enactments are being sought to correct an evil that has, like a canker-worm, been gnawing at the vital principles of commercial lite and interest, namely, that of giving a quid pro quo—a true value for a monetary equivalent—and establishing the immoral effort of gaining something for nothing. I say here again that as we love our laud and honour the traditions that have made our national lif; great and honoured, we must be ready in our individual spheres and by our individual attitude emphatically and unhesitatingly and continuously declrae against this evil, that is doing so much to ruin our national, moral, and religious life and influence. The law may do something to hinder gambling practices, but the gambling spirit and sentiment can only be overcome by taking advantage of our individual opportunities and creating a better public sentiment here also.