MODERN TENDENCIES

Taranaki Daily News, 17 November 1926, Page 6

MODERN TENDENCIES

WARNING BY A MINISTER. BEAUTY CONTESTS DISCUSSED. Preaching at the Methodist Collegiate Cliureh at Auckland, the Rev, Dr. Hanston called attention to some disquieting features in modern society. Although signs were not wanting of an increasing spiritual idealism and growing social passion, and the world, on the whole, was improving, nevertheless certain features suggested what had. been well termed "an upsurge of barbarism.” Nor could the Great War be altogether to blame; for even before 1914 the same tendencies were at work, and the war itself was an expression of them. In the realm of painting in some circles barbaric splashes of strokes reminiscent of baby efforts were considered marks of modern genius. Gross, ugly, bestial-looking figures were hailed as the best in sculpture. Much in modern popular music suggested a combination of saw and lawnmower, or the btillroarer of the Australian and African aborigine. The latest dance was such a vision of distorted limbs that most efforts of primitive peoples were graceful in comparison. It was to the credit of one cl ureh that it had banned this dance among its people. In dress, the '‘smart set” seemed to be getting as near to the barbaric girdle as it could. The beauty competitions were contrary to the dignity of modest womanhood. With their exaltation of physical charms rather than qualities of mind and beauty cf character they could not be other than lowering to the tone of the community. True inodesty could only be blunted by the sight of undressed girls on the stage or by their photographs. During the week the preacher had seen two young Chinese and a couple of turbaned Hindus gazing at the pictures of a girl competitor in a very scanty bathing dress. What would they think of our Western stunt? Some cinematograph pictures and magazines and novels p...dered to the basest passions and often under the thin guise of realistically portraying the evil of evil. The tendency in some quarters to condone the application of “the unwritten law” was . the revival of the barbaric club-law for which, indeed, far more

< < iild be argued than the modern recrudescence. Much of the “new psychology” vns n raking of the murk-heap. Some features, even in religion, were revivals <> primitive necromancy, or expositions ol uoihcpllonw more pagan than Christ ian. Dr. Hanston said that the duty of the Church was to range itself in no i iicrriuin hmhion agaiiint these barbaric pagan tviidritrien. What was needed was a more challenging pro. lamatiu of the religion of the Xew Testament. A revival of thia would iiiean, as it has been in the past, puritlcation of art and music from grotesquenoss, the banishing of moral ugliness from literature, the recognition of the essential elements in real beauty, ami the exaltation of modetty now tso often dethroned. If Ihe Xew Testament teachings were to become an epfential element in tljejiormal education of thq young, one very great forward would be taken.