Call to Youth .

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 62, 16 March 1944, Page 8

Call to Youth .

A LEAUFBOM BISHOP HOLLAND “A great door and effectual is opened unto us and there are many adversaries. ’ ’ These words, said his I.ordship, the Bishop of Wellington, preaching at All Saints’ Church on Sunday evening, summed up his thoughts about the signiiicance of the Young Anglican Movement, which had been inaugurated that day. His Lordship described the earlier meeting as one for youth concerning youth, and the new movement was designed to do something of urgency and importance for the whole community. “Looking beyond the door,” said his Lordship, “I see a very moving picture —a whole generation hurled into a world ablaze, unable to escape—millions lighting for their own lives and for the sake of humanity, and countless others growing up in a world ablaze.” On all these was laid a still greater task, that of creating such conditions for the days to come that the children of the future might rise up to thank God for this generation. But they must be realistic about the whole matter. In his opinion the youth of this generation might be divided into three groups. The first, a very large group, were those for whom the war had meant the dissolution of their personality, with the result that their lives ceased to have any direction, for whom life seemed to consist of nothing else but giving full reign to the instincts of self-preservation and selfindulgence, or, as Mr. J. B. Priestley had recently said in a broadcast, whose thought and activity were nothing more than “sniggering trivialities.” Those in this group had lost their way iu the fog of the war, and the Church’s responsibility to them was to try to take them by the hand and lead them back into Christ’s way. For the second group the war was causing them to ask questions, “What is it about?” “What does the future hold for us?” Some in this group had become resentful against the older generation, a point of view with which we could have great sympathy, when all the promises made after the last war were remembered. A moving plea on behalf of this group had been made in the House of Representatives by a returned soldier, pointing out that those old enough to light in the war were not old enough to have a chance of making the peace. There was, therefore, a tremendous responsibility on those of the older generation to understand the outlook of this group. The real cause of their questioning Avas that they had acquired no philosophy of life, but they had been given no chance to do so. How could they, when the educational authority itself had not found a philosophy of education. The members of the advisory committee on education whose report had recently been published in New Zealand no doubt would consider that the country was an outpost of Christian civilisation; but there was no word in the report to denote this. “Christian was a word forbidden.” How much Christian philosophy could be learned in the home. All, no doubt, wanted their children to grow to live decent lives; but this was a philosophy far rcmoA’ed from Christianity. The third group, a small one, comprised those whose lives had been integrated by the war who had found God a living, directing cmanicipating Friend, and those who came from homes where God counted and who, through natural and normal development had found Christ to be a loving Saviour and living Lord. This was the group on whom so much de pended and from this group the Young Anglican Movement was being recruited. The object was to reach the men and women of the other two groups, to be a commando at the beck and call of Christ, to be men and women who knew the Christian moral landmarks and the reason for holding them. The only hope for the Avorld avbs that among the younger generation there should be enough who had found the way of life in God, who had given themselves over completely to something bigger thar themselves, that was, to God. In a moving conclusion the Bishop appealed to those olf the older genera tion in the very large congregation to have at the back of their minds the responsibility of seeing that the young had their chance of making the" kind of world for which God was calling, and to pray that God would raise up from the young of every nation those who would give themselves to Him, to serA*e His purpose. brightened as neAv; give them a Dry Shampoo. Moore, Phone 5007.