MODERN CHRISTIANITY

Southland Times, Issue 21096, 30 May 1930, Page 4

MODERN CHRISTIANITY

STUDENTS AND RELIGION.

(Contributed.)

“The Student Christian Movement” says Mr Basil Mathews, “is the most wonderful development of modern Christianity.” One cannot be quite certain whether the attitude of Mr Mathews is one of objective admiration merely, or whether it has the tone of grateful and personal wonder, expressed by a Bantu student secretary who writes in a report: There is nothing that thrills our students more than the idea of the federation. . . .It has become a real thing-to them .. . perhaps because of a deep sense of need which our students have, and their desire for fellowship with the students of other lands.”

To explain “the idea of the federation” is impossible; it is only possible to describe the organization of it. Its full name is the World Student Christian Federation, and it must be remembered, of course, that by describing the organization, one can get as little idea of the real force of such a fellowship as one could get an electric shock by reading the meter; only that thinking people can at least take an intelligent interest in the trend of affairs in the student, world, where the future leaders of communities and nations are in training. The World Student Christian Federation then is the oldest and largest international student organization. It. is represented in 45 countries by national student movements like the New Zealand Student Christian Movement which has branches in the four university colieages, the four training colleges and a few secondary schools beside thirteen auxiliary or ex-student groups in other towns. The Student Christian Movements in the different countries are by no means uniform in their machinery and activities, but in that matter each is expected to express its own national taste. Three hundred thousand students in all are members of the federation. They come from the universities of 45 lands. They belong to many races—brown, black, yellow, white. They speak different languages. Some of them belong to a church, some do not. The former do not all belong to the same church, for they are born and brought up in lands of widely different religious traditions. Some are Protestant, some Orthodox, some Roman Catholic, some Syrian. The federation includes students of all denoniinations, all races, all colours, all confessions, all nations. The president of the federation, for example, is American, one of the vice-presidents is French, one Chinese, the treasurer is Scottish, the staff are American, Swiss, Dutch, Indian, Austrian and Scottish, and the executive committee has seven members— Ndfero, Canadian, American, Japanese, Ceylonese, German and Australian. Of the officers and staff four' are women. The members of the federation by joining it have expressed their allegiance to Jesus, the great, - simple Christ, and their desire to share in a fellowship which will exalt Him in the universities of the world. In 1920 the federation organized European student relief. Bitterness and poverty had resulted from the war, and it fell, to the federation, the only international student body then in existence, to organize reconstruction work. The sum of £500,000 was raised, and what is more important, every part of the student world joined in; French helping Germans, New Zealanders helping Austrians, and -so on. That branch of the work of the federation, now called International Student Service, continues in a policy adapted to changing conditions and needs. ■ ' ■ *

There is an old English song about fellowship, and for “Student Movers” all over the world it covers with equal truth the spirit of the movement from the magnificehce of an international conference to the more ordinary friendliness of the .weekly discussion groups in college. It goes something like this: Lo, here is Feloweshippe One faith to holde', one truth to seeke, One- wrong to wreke, One luvinge-cup to sippe. One song to singe, in swete accorde, And maken melodye . ... Lo, here is Feloweshippe.