In a public statement Cardinal Iiinsley has called for the recognition of " the fixed standard of God's law" in our youth organisations.
In emphasising the same point the Bishop of Lancaster has publicly
deplored the fact that " the Government, in launching a new Youth Movement, has nowhere in its innumerable circulars so much as mentioned the name of God."
Stating that we were now struggling and suffering for Christian liberty, Cardinal Hinsley in his statement, invoked the example of the late Lord Baden-Powell whose Scout movement was founded on the awareness that the young heart freely responded to the tkofold loyalty of faith and fatherland.
The Colonial Office attitude towards the training of citizens in tropical Africa was a model for imitation, In the memorandum of 1925 the principle had been laid down that religion was essential for the education
of the native populations, and the late Lord Lloyd declared that missionary co-operation was indispensable for the same purpose of forming true citizenship among backward races.
" There is no power," stated the Cardinal, " to bind the multitude of fickle wills in common harmony save tlie fixed standard of God's law. The idolatry of mere physical and purely worldly culture will tend to that savage callousness of which we have too evident experience from abroad if not at home. The whole history of Christianity and its institutions shows that a man's natural faculties are not stunted but developed and perfected by co-ordinating them with the highest spiritual ideals.
" In the words of St. Augustine of Hippo: ' Religion unites citizen to citizen, nation to nation, yea, all men in a union not of companionship only but of brotherhood.'
" Can the myth of white superiority lead anyone to suppose that religion, useful for primitive races, is not needed by us? Were we in any doubt as to this, the present condition of the world would provide the answer, Pure secularism, for all its glitter
ing promises, stands. condemned by the ruin it has wrought."
Among the proposals made by the Cardinal were that— The example of the newly-formed Air Training Corps in stressing moral and religious instruction in its syllabus should be followed by the central and local organisations for the youth movement.
The Colonial Office directions for the forming of citizens in tropical Africa should be a forceful argument for fearless pronouncements from official sources on the importance of religion for the youth of this country.
In the success of the Scout movement might be seen the wisdom of following the Same inspiring principles.
No attempts should be made to prejudice existing religious centres for youth by giving preferential treatment to public institutions on a grand scale in which spiritual ideals might find little or no encouragement.
Speaking at a St. George's Day rally in Preston, the Bishop of . Lancaster (Mgr. Flynn) commended our existing youth move ments which were based on the acknowledgment of the fear and love of God. The Scout Movement with its Law and Promise and its daily good turn formed an excellent basis on which to build the Christian life and Christian charity.
Some while ago the Times had urged the necessity for the Christian instruction of the young, asserting that the secular education of past years had produced a generation which had little knowledge of God or Christian tenets.
It was surprising, therefore, continued Mgr. Flynn, that the Government in launching a 'new youth movement had nowhere in its innumerable circulars so much as mentioned the name of God.
The Bishop said that he thought that this was not at all intentional but was due to carelessness and forgetfulness. It behoved Catholic parents, along with all other Christian parents, to be very interested in every phase of the new youth movements and to insist that God shall always be honoured and that the primary object of all such movements shall be the furtherance of God's work.