The Secular Press

Canon Green was reported but not fully reported. Our contemporary. Critic, omitted few of the relevant points he made. The Dominion and the Evening Post both wary of religious controversy made his talks read like chats and quoted the interesting, but not always the important, questions.

If specific examples are needed of the secular approach of the press it is only necessary to compare the fort right sermons printed in Sydney papers. In this instance, however, a lectura based on six reasons for the divinity of Christ was merely a large gathering in print. The six reasons were mentioned in passing.

No Parsonical he

Green was an Evangelist. His approach was a mixture of personality, popular appeal and frank speaking. He set out to appeal to as many Christians as possible and succeeded remarkably. If he is an orthodox Anglican, then he must have diluted his creed to appeal to all creeds. The merits of this approach can be questioned, but then it is also possible to ask—what is an orthodox Anglican? It is very difficult to define Anglicanism itself and the approach may have necessitated some dilution but did not appear to need compromise or surrender. He avoided questions any more basic than the divinity of Christ, the precepts of Charity and the importance of Common Sense.

More than Music

At 7.30 on a Sunday night the Town Hall was full. The lecture was due to start at 8.15 and the Majestic Theatre was used for the overflow.

This enthusiasm and interest in Christianity is not a source of amazement to any Christian who believes that the Christian message is a vital and compelling one. It is also a challenge to those who believe that a more Christian country would be a better country. The people will listen and provided religion speaks in their language without avoiding issues people may do something. It is necessary to strike one note of warning.

Doubts

Two comments, one by a Protestant and the other by a Catholic do place the enthusiastic meetings in a better perspective:

One had this to say: "Canon Green merely gave moral justification to a lot of platitudes with which our society is ridden. He didn't really say very much."

And the Catholic: "I think the visit was a good thing but one can only have doubts about the results. Was it the speaker or was it what he had to say? What he had to say was and is the main thing. Everybody hopes it will have lasting results but a lot of people of all religions doubt it."

The note of warning amounts to this: Did Canon Green have anything to give people that the Churches do not already give; if less fluently? Christianity cannot be built on a vague approach. There must be principles, rights and wrongs, truths and falsehoods. Canon Green did little to point out the necessity for, and the truth of Christianity. In a word he was not enough.

The State aid supporters must, for once, be appreciating the situation. Mr. Heron was "right and the pleas of those who wished the Canon to speak were, looking at the letter of the law, wrong. Secularists were hoist with their own petard.

Moreover the strict secularists were made aware of the fact that prayers commence the secondary school day. That is not secularism. Trying to have the secular cake and eat it is a confusing spectacle.

But why should the headmaster of Wellington College have been the centre of difference when the Technical College took exactly the same stand?

The Christian Churches are now aware that in this apparently godless country a trace of Christian belief and desire for God does remain.

If they can only unite even if it is only to preach the existence of God. His love and the destiny of man a free being with an immortal destiny. Settlement of other differences can only proceed from some common grounds, and these appear to be the most practical and easily attained.

It is an interesting comment on the that this article was solicited. Nobody was sufficiently fired to write an article immediately for Salient with a full report of his address at the College.