CHURCH LIFE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 224, 5 July 1939, Page 2

CHURCH LIFE.

CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND

(Per Press Association). WELLINGTON, July 4

Chua'eh; life in the North, of England is very vigorous, according to the Rev. E. O. Shield, ■ who returned to Wellington. to-day after five years abroad. He was for threei years studying at Queen’s College, Oxford, and the rest of the time was curate at South Manchester. Ho is to relieve the Rev. Samuda at Johnsonvillo as acting vicar.

Manchester, Mr Shield said, was still recovering from the cotton slump and there was a good deal of unemployment. Living was fairly cheap. The development of an extensive housing scheme under which' homes could be had at a. rent as low as 12s a week had done much, for the poorer people. It had been said in England that the churches were half empty. One of the Bishops of the Church had remarked that a better way to look at it was to say that they were half full. The quantity of tlie church in England might not have improved, but he was of the opinion that the quality certainly had. Wherever an energetic earnest churchman was to be found there was usually an active centre of church activity. A great many English people took their religion ready made. Although nominally Church of England, their share in church life was limited very largely to christening, marriage and funeral.