CHURCH'S WORK

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 8, 10 July 1939, Page 11

CHURCH'S WORK

CHALLENGE BY DEAN

SYNOD DISCUSSIONS

"FIDDLING WHILE ROME

BURNS"

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) HAMILTON, This Day. A challenge to Christian people to take their part in meeting the social needs of the day was made by tho Very Rev. T. P. Weatherhog, Dean of Hamilton, when preaching in St. Peter's Cathedral last evening. The dean said that last Sunday the congregation listened to a most inspiring address by Archbishop Averill, hi which the archbishop appealed for a translation of the Gospel in terms of the social needs of the day. A session of the Waikato Diocesan Synod followed during the week, and the proceedings of this session were described by the dean as a magnificent example of fiddling while Rome burned. There was bickering concerning procedure, and one member felt obliged to appeal for some sense oi dignity during a discussion on a festering sore and disgrace—the sweating ot the clergy. One of the younger clergy stated that, in order to attract youth, he played in a jazz dance band, while another said that he had resorted to taking his place in the football scrum. The dean pointed out that, unless the Church people awakened, other organisations would do the work the Church should be doing. An appeal had been made locally for blankets for the Chinese victims of the war by people who did not profess to be Christians. This fact represented a challenge to Church people, and the dean expressed the hope that before the service ended some of those present would come forward and contribute to the Chinese fund for blankets. . The dean's appeal met with success, for at the close of the service members of the congregation met him in the vstry and gave him over £10 for the fund.