PRIESTHOOD CANDIDATES

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20728, 11 February 1939, Page 10

PRIESTHOOD CANDIDATES

AUTHORESS' WIDOWER MAN WHO ONCE DENIED GOD (From a Correspondent) LONDON, December 12. Mr Middleton Murry, whose first wife ! was the New’ Zealand authoress Katherine Mansfield, is a candidate for the Church of England priesthood. His name has been entered at Westcott House Theological College, Cambridge. ! The announcement has recalled his book, “God,” written nine years ago. In it he abolished God for himself, dej rided the churches, and sought to es- : tablish a new religion in which man I was his own god. It was after the ; death of Katherine Mansfield in 1923 that he decided to search for a new | faith. j In his book he wrote: “God does not exist. . . There is no place for ! God in the universe. . . There have I been moments in my life when I would have given my very soul to have had a God to pray to; when I sought Him in loneliness and bitterness and despair. I could not find Him then. I . do not need Him now. . . The day of religion is over." Changed Views Discussing his changed views, Mr Middleton Murry said: “The last’ five years have really convinced me that nothing has power to withstand modern paganism except the organised Christian Church. By paganism I mean all that is involved in the complete subordination of the individual person to the secular State. In 1929 when I wrote that book I really did want to repudiate every Christian conception of God which I at that time understood. Since then added experience has brought me to a conception of God which I could not have understood at that time, but which, no%v that I have understood it, I see to be indistinguishable from the traditional Christian conception of God as many of the greatest Christian saints have understood it." Mr Middleton Murry desires to become a country parson. "I have great ideas about what a country parson can do," he says. "Country life is dying because there is no sense of community. The best blood is being drained into the towns; the boys don’t want to work on the land. It is a hard life, but it can also be a good life if someone is there to look after the young village people all the while."