THE ARCHBISHOP'S ADDRESS

Before a large audience in Sanders Theatre last evening, the general subject, "National Problems and Christian Solutions," was discussed in various of its phases by His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Right Reverend T. F. Gailor, D.D., Bishop of Tennessee, the Right Reverend C. P. Anderson, D.D., Bishop-Coadjutor of Chicago, and the Right Reverend A. Mackay-Smith, D.D., Bishop-Coadjutor of Pennsylvania. The Right Reverend William Lawrence, D.D., Bishop of Massachusetts presided.

Bishop Gailor, the first speaker, whose subject was "The South," said that in a century whose greatness lay in its discoveries, the greatest discovery of all was that of the nation itself, not as a mere collection of individuals, but in its national character. Every problem in national life is a moral question and therefore ultimately a religious problem. There can be no anthithesis between politics and religion because the nation is bound to the same Almighty as the individual. The great ideals, social and political, are the Christian ideals, not that others have not had ethical insight, but because Christianity supplies the "ought" by which men are to aspire understandingly. To affect the nation, the individual must be reached, men not measures, must be supplied, and the great influence for making men is the Gospel.

Bishop Anderson, on the subject of "The West," was the next speaker. There is no such thing, he said, as North and East and South and West. The East has no problems that the West does not also have, and the West has none which the East has not. It is the duty of all public men to minimize the things that differentiate the various parts of the country. The work of the church and the problems of the nation take on different colors in different parts of the country. Thus in the West the church is more agressive than in the East because the problems of the West are less amenable to its influences, owing to the fact that the church is always stronger in older countries. Behind everything, however, must come the impelling and compelling force of Christian character and no man who is to be a friend to his country and to his fellowmen can afford to stand aloof from the activities of the Christian church.

Bishop Mackay-Smith then spoke on "The East." Its problems he said, were much the same as those of the rest of the country, but somewhat harder owing to the fact that here the separation between man and man socially is greater than in other parts of the country, and whatever hinders the approach of one man's heart to another's, tends to retard Christian civilization. A second tendency which adds to the difficulty of problems in the East is the mad rush of city life which is more acute here than in the West. A third problem, one which has grown up within the last twenty years, is the class of young men, the sons of those who have made their own large fortunes. Young, educated, the masters of wealth and leisure, with no-large es- tates to take their attention and no active interest in politics, the possessors merely of brutal cash, they have become one of the most serious problems of the church. The solution of these problems, the church finds in the priesthood of the laity. This is the reason that it has the right to ask college men to be earnest and to follow the example of such men as George Frisbie Hoar, whose name is to be mentioned reverently, and with bowed head.

At the close of Bishop Mackay-Smith's address, Bishop Lawrence introduced His Grace, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

As life goes on, the Archbishop said, we constantly learn that it is not always the good questions that get the most immediate answers, and it is not necessarily a good thing to get an immediate answer, provided the question is so put as to make us think. When he was a schoolboy his master, whom he at that time thought a not very wise schoolmaster, used to ask him in which century and in which country he would most have preferred to live. Although at that time his answers varied and were inconsistent, he was sure now. The century would be the twentieth century, and the place the cities of the English-speaking races; this side the Atlantic or the other. For life at this time and such a place, devoted to Christian service, seems the loftiest ideals for which a man of high ambition may strive. Here people have come to realize better than ever before the grandeur of the call to Christian service, and now come nearer to answering it.

The Archbishop said that he like to look at portraits of the great men of history and, judging their opportunities in the light of our later knowledge and experience, consider whether they rose to meet those opportunities or whether they missed them, and to wonder how those of the future who shall look back upon us, will judge that we have risen to our own opportunities or missed them. We must understand how unique are the opportunities for service offered to men of our day compared with those given to corresponding individuals who have gone before. The wonderful development of means of communication, means of intelligence, and means of production are forms of God's call to Christian service, are a trust put into our hands with which to answer the call to Christian service.

In conclusion the Archbishop said that there is one form of human wrong which can only be put right by one set of people, the young men. We know the curse that falls on every land where impurity is rife, and only the young men can grapple with this. Sometimes we read stories of such cowardice, such brutality and callousness, that we seem to stand literally at the gates of hell. But there is one power which even the gates of hell cannot withstand--the power of the Christian church, and the battle is not ours, it is the Lord's.

At the close of the Archbishop's address, Bishop Lawrence thanked the speakers of the evening in the name of the audience, and requested the Archbishop to pronounce his benediction, upon the audience standing