Evening star., 1925-03-08
A Bishops View

ELL of Washington and
" " bishop of the Methodist
Church. is entitled to speak
for 100000 of his churchmen.
DR.. Mcdowell Is not only a preacher.
but an educator of youth. having
taught at Ohio Wesleyan and served
| as chancellor of the Denver, Univer-
, sity. In the Methodist Church he is
president of the board of education
of the board of temperance and of the
board Of prohibition and public morals.
He has given most of his life to the
study of public morality.
His answers follow:
Q. Is this country in a moral
slump?
Looking for a Slump.
A. Yes and no. People who look
for slumps can always find slumps.
Indeed. they can be found without be-
ing looked for. But people who look
for them can also find always moral
revivals. And this is always true.
The morning cometh and also the
night. We are always in a crisis.
Forty-hve years ago 1 read a great
essay written by Phillips Brooks to
the effect that the popular skepticism
of that time struck at the very roots
of Christianity. The roots are always
being struck at.
Q. What do you think of our pres
ent crime wave and so-called jazz age?
A. The crime wave is serious.
There is a fundamental disregard of
law and the setting of individual wish
against the social good which will have
ha tAl . x,,fl t& l.,
working, irreparable injury to the Re-
public. If it goes it's whole length, it
will ruin the Republic. Nations can
not go wrong with reference to law
and come out right with reference to
civilization.
Church Has Not Failed.
@. Has the church failed?
A. There are two ways of asking
that question and two ways of an
swering it. First, has the church
failed to present Jesus Christ and His
teachings to the world? If, having His
life and story. we have failed to pass
it on TO humanity and have failed to
live by 1t ourselves, then we have
failed grievously. Or we may ask.
has the church failed to get the peo-
PIE to accept the Christ whom 1t has
offered to them? And that is a very
different situation.
We are always assuming that the
failure is the church's failure, where
as 1T is just as much and even more
pathetically the failure of humanity
itself. Remember how the Jews re-
fused to follow Jesus Christs lead
when He was on earth, and how i'm
perfectly the Gentiles took His teach
ings and His life. They did not want
to follow His teachings. They loved
darkness rather than light People
then and now want to have their own
way 1t would be an unutterable
failure If Christ had not presented
His great ideals and If the church
should not keep on presenting them.
But the saddest thing in history is
the failure of the world to accept
these great ideals and to keep on be-
ing material instead Of going with the
worlds idealists-
There Is q Cure.
@. Is the disease incurable?
A. The only incurables in the moral
realm probably are those who decline
to be cured. 1t is the old story of
the lament of Jesus over Jerusalem.
He wanted to do the great thing for
Jerusalem. and Jerusalem simply
would not.
Q. Has the church become as ma
terialistic as the world itself?
A. 1 am always ready to admit the
imperfections of the church. Nothing
is gained by closing ones eyes to
them or by denying them. Neverthe-
less, with all the imperfections of the
church and with all it's conformity to
the world in which it lives. 1t is, as
far as 1 can see. the only institution
that Is in any large way even trying
to set forth the ideals and teachings
of Jesus Christ and to get His spirit
to prevail in the world. Its step Is
slow and halting and not always per-
fectly straight ahead. But no other
body is in any large way engaged in
even the endeavor to bring in the
kingdom of Christ. The church as I
see it does not begin to be as ma
terialistic as the world.
O. What will help the people to