THE CHURCH AND THE MASSES.

Motueka Star, Volume II, Issue 98, 22 July 1902, Page 5

THE CHURCH AND THE MASSES.

Thursday s Evening Post says : Considerable discussion took place yesterday afternoon at the Anglican Synod on the subject of the influence which the English Church has upon the working classes. The topic was broached by a reverend gentleman, who said, “The Church of England is pre-eminently respectable,” and fails to reach the masses of the people and bring them to the church.

The Rev. T. H. Sprott admitted the failure, but claimed that it applied generally to all religious bodies- -even the Salvation Army did not reach them. Fourteen years ago General Booth recognise 1 that the religious part of his organisation’s work would not keep it alive, and so he commenced that social work which kept it in existence today in the Old Country. But in this colony the c mditions were different; the people’s ideals were politically attended to. They were urged at"the ballot box, and the Church was not irequired to interfere. That was the reason in a nutshell, why the Church failed to reach the masses. The Rev. R. Young said the classes were more difficult to deal with than the masses. He regretted the great amount of time which the better-off class frittered away in amusement, and he singled out the ping-pong par vies, Sunday tennis, and golf-play-ing as especial stumbling blocks to the work of the Church.

Various speakers opposed the statement that the Anglicon Church failed to do its duty to the working classes. Bishop Wallis said he believed the E \o-lish Church was much more in touch with them than Nonconformists. The subject was not pursued further.