This column first appeared in the听Victoria Daily Times on Jan.听18, 1941.
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A new book came to my desk last week, written by a German novelist whose books were burned by the Nazis in 1934. This story, entitled The Life of My Mother, was begun in Czechoslovakia and finished last summer in New York. The name of the writer is Oskar Maria Graf, and the story covers the period from 1857 to the present.
It is a sad and harrowing book, and several times I laid it down, but the more I thought about it, the more its value became apparent. Above all things, it reveals the hard lives of the Germans, harassed by wars, the causes of听which were not known to the people. Nor were they concerned. Wars came and went.
The scene of the story is in Bavaria. The first incident recorded in the book illustrates the fanatical religious zeal of the people and their disregard of human suffering. It was the afternoon of All Saints Day, and in accordance with an old custom, the people gathered at the graves of their ancestors in the nearby parish.
But it happened that in the Helmrath home the mother was in labour pains with her fourth child, destined to be the heroine of this story. Religious duties seemed more important to the household than the distress of impending childbirth. So the suffering woman was left alone, except for last year鈥檚 baby, who was creeping around on the floor. Sometimes she would come up to the bed and touch the hot, clenched hands and cry because she was frightened at the whimpering of her mother 鈥� When the family returned at dusk, they found the newborn child crying lustily beside the exhausted mother. The one-year old was hidden under the bed.
The place of the church in the lives of these Bavarian peasants overshadowed all other influences. It was a ceremonial to be rigidly observed. It doesn鈥檛 seem to have been a school of ethics, nor a lamp to illuminate a dark place, and not even a guidepost to show the difference between right and wrong; and certainly it was not a teacher of love and mercy. By careful observance of its rules, one might escape the sinister intervention of evil spirits.
In the background to the story, adding to the bitterness in the hearts of some of the people, was the memory of the persecutions, bloody and terrible, of those who dared to embrace another form of听worship. Religious persecution had in it all the brutalities of the concentration camp.
If this portrayal of life in Bavaria can be considered as typical of all Germany, it makes it easier to understand how an evil leader has been able to sow the seed of greed and cruelty in the hearts of the people. It was there already.
I finished the book with a gathering sense of apprehension. It is easy to see how the church failed the people in Bavaria. It is not so easy to analyze the shortcomings of the church here in our own time and country.
All my life I have been a church member and all my adult life a Sunday school teacher. I听believe in the church and its message. I know there is a power in religion to change people鈥檚 lives. I听know that the teachings of听Christ hold the key to world peace, but I am grievously tormented in my mind at this time over the attitude of many people to the church.
I remember the place the church filled in the lives of our people when I was a little girl. The Sunday services at Northfield School in Manitoba were events of both pleasure and interest, where the people came in wagon-loads, with patchwork quilts laid on the seats by way of upholstery.
I remember hearing the women say the work always seemed lighter all week when they had been to church. I feel this now as much as then. The church and its message is a beam of light across a dark sea. I would go to church if it were only for the singing of the hymns.
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There is no doubt in my mind that the spiritual hunger in the hearts of man has not changed, but the question that is agitating many of us is this, why has the church lost its appeal, particularly among young people?
For example, there is a trainee camp in our neighbourhood where about 900 young men have been gathered for a month鈥檚 military training 鈥� then their place is taken by others. Efforts have been made by the two churches in the neighbourhood to establish friendly relations with these young fellows. The young people鈥檚 societies have arranged parties for them, with quizzes, songs and games, coffee and sandwiches.
The only hitch in the arrangements have been in the attendance 鈥� very few came. And there must be a reason. There must be a reason to cause the officers to say: 鈥淒on鈥檛 expect them to come to the church. They simply will not go.鈥�
A woman who had done great service in finding recreation places for homeless men in an eastern city said to me not long ago: 鈥淲e sing songs but there must be no religion 鈥� that would turn the men against the whole scheme.鈥�
What I am wondering now is, where has the church fallen down? Christ said it was hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, not because the rich man had a harder heart than a poor man, but because he had more allurement and distractions.
In these prodigal days, entertainment is easy to find. The family in modest circumstances now has both a car and a radio. Anyone who will go to a library can have books. For 25 cents we can see a play, complete with plot, music and dancing. Are we all falling under the rich man鈥檚 difficulty? Is that one reason for our waning interest in religion?
And yet none of these things are a substitute for the church.
Certainly, the converse of this is听true. Life today has bitter contrasts. The poor man, out of work, dirty, unshaven, footsore and discouraged, finds his heart embittered as he looks at other men riding while he walks 鈥� well dressed, and believing, too, that the church condones these inequalities.
And yet in spite of the fact that only a small proportion of our people attend any church, I believe, as Mr. Priestly said on Christmas Eve, that we are fundamentally a Christian people; but because we have not had to defend our beliefs or suffer for them, we have entered a period of stagnation. We听have received the benefits of Christianity freely, and taken them without gratitude.
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All the old patterns of life are breaking before our eyes, and the church may have to change its pattern, too. Most of us are too sleek and contented, our muscles too soft from inaction to get into active service for God. Church attendance, mere pew-warming, enjoyment of music and oratory, is not service at all.
Let us consider again the problem of the young trainees, some of听them away from home for the first time. Let us use our imagination, going back to the first time we left home. What a surge of independence raced through our veins. The world was ours, swung, as Francis Thompson says, 鈥渓ike a trinket from his wrist.鈥� We wanted no boundaries set on our liberties.
But let us also remember the day when withering homesickness overtook us, and we felt we would give all the world offered in the ways of crowns and prizes, if only we could get home again. Then how welcome was the friendliness of someone. I wonder if the church people sometimes fail in听friendliness.
To show real friendliness to people takes time, tact and vitality of purpose. The selfish church member will not take on any such role. He will probably make himself comfortable by his own fireside and grumble because the minister has not called on him.
David Christle, who was for years the beloved pastor of one of Winnipeg鈥檚 largest churches, in his book entitled The Service of Christ, has this thought:
鈥淲hat a hard time people have who are onlookers at life! You cannot reduce life to a play or a spectacle which you watch, without in the long run being utterly bored with it. Life avenges itself on the man who does nothing about it.
鈥淎 man鈥檚 task is his life preserver 鈥� Our work [he is speaking of the church] goes beyond anything science has ever attempted to do. To take a human being and remake him with a new disposition, and a new attitude toward life; to take the heart and make it all over again; to take the mind and听give it new power! Is not this a听task of supreme fascination?鈥�
In this time of danger we must stand on guard for the Christian religion. And we do that only when we practise it. It is the charter of our liberties. It is the powerhouse of our strength.
