NON-CHURCH GOERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 60, 29 February 1908, Page 2

NON-CHURCH GOERS.

A VIIIOIiOCS REVIEW. THE MASSKS ANJ) REUCION'. Per Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. Tin 1 address of the retiring president ol the Jlethodist Conference (Rev Sialic) to-night included a vigorous and plainspoken review of tliti problem of nonchurchgoers. lie referred to the enormous disparity between the number of people inside and outside the churches. "In dealing with this subject we need not go," lie said, ''beyond our own shores, because New Zealand presents oil a reduced scale a picture ol what exists in Europe, in America, and in Australia. Where may we look lor the cause of this? It may be expressed in a sentence: The world has captured the church, and still, for the most part, holds it in bondage. The entire population of New Zealand is in round numbers !WI),0U0. The number of pcopje for whom accommodation is provided for in all the churches and meeting houses is 37o,!)08. Here we have a difference of considerably over half a million, which means that if 011 any day the whole population wished to attend divine service more than half a million could not get inside the places where service is held, but this does not express all the facts. When we ask what number of people the churches themselves return as attending their various places of worship we "find the number as 220,2(M, which leaves a still greater disparity between our total population and church attendants. It is an unwelcome truth that not a quarter of the people of the Dominion are ever found within tlie walls of the churches." llr. Sladea referred to what lie termed the deep and awful cleavage that exists between the working classes and the Christian Church. "Not only," he said,

"do comparatively few of the great army of toiling men and women attend the churches, hut there exists in their minds an intense hostility to them, and through them to religion itself. io 1 these persons churches arc associated with political disabilities, with social inequalities, with economic injustice, with pride of purse, and pride of place. To, them religion has seemed to he always the privilege of the rich and the strong. We cannot wonder at this. It is d'llicult to think of au abuse of power in which State churches have not slured the darkest pages of history have been , embroidered with mitres and lawn .sleeves. In recent times the churches have seemed to the working classes to be indifferent to their needs and sufferings. They think of the churches as institutions which say, "Live in a nice house, wear nice clothes, have money in your pocket, and we. will welcome you.' They think that the churches are not only out of sympathy with them, but are actually opposed to their efforts to secure fair wages for themselves, better homes and environment for their families, and to be able to live without the dread presence of the wolf always at the door. They think the churches have always teen on the side of tfie big battalions of the capitalist, of the land owner, of the manufacturer, and of the monopolist. We who have read history know how mistaken all this is. Wc know, in spite of her many shortcomings and mistakes, the Christian Church has done infinitely -, more than any other half-dozen institutions put together for the amelioration of the suffering of mankind. If Christianity has no power to attract the multitude, if it has nothing to offer towards the solution of problems which, though not immediately religious, yet have a great influence on religion; if when men with the anguish bom Of hunger ask that the bread of the earth he made easier to procure, religion only talks about the bread of the life to come; if when shivering with cold they pray for warm clothing for themselves ami their families, religion can only point to the white raiment which the redeemed wear; if, in the face of the extremes of wealth and destitution | which modern life presents, the multimillionaire squandering thousands of pounds 011 one bacchanalian riot while the pauper lies dying of hunger on his sack oJ straw; if, I say in answer to this, religion has only the message about the crowns of gold which the saved shall wear before the Throne in another sphere, it should not surprise us that men turn away from it as having no message for them."