PITT-STREET WESLEYAN.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 197, 20 August 1900, Page 2

PITT-STREET WESLEYAN.

"Thy .kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth" was the text from which the Rev. A. H. Collins preached an admirable sermon yesterday morning at Pitt-street Wesleyan Church. Mr Collins said that the dawn of a brighter, better, and purer time had been the dream of prophet and priest Those who had caught most surely the spirit of the Christ and been filled with His paesion for redemption had never been able to persuade themselves that as yet the purposes of God had been accomplished on the earth. "What is the Kingdom of God?" asked Mr Collins. "Where may we look and hope to find the ideal society we hear a good deal about, the church, the true church, and the holy catholic church, though, truth to tell, the word has for many a narrow significance, and exclusion Instead of inclusion seems to some of us its chosen motto. We exclude from Its society all those who do not confess the perfection of our organisation. We maKO its doors to bristle with many a thorny question, and we employ It not as the point of wholesale union, but as the war cry of arrogant superstition." Mr Collins pointed out that the word "church" was seldom used by Christ, but "the Kingdom." It was to be desired that the same was done now, for the word "Kingdom had wideness. catholicity and comprehension, whereas "church" was to growing numbers associated with an entirely dlffqerent set of ideas. That empire or kingdom was divine In Us conception, spiritual in its constitution, and benevolent in Its design. He believed in the Kingdom of God in heaven Did they believe in the Kingdom of God on earth? Did they believe that the principle of Christ's life should be the principle of the market place, the shop, the exchange? Did they believe that no person no institution, no thing, had any moral right to exist for any other Pur; pose, or by any ether principe than -the purpose and principle which lead Christ up to Calvary? Did they believe that whatever would have been wrong in Jesus Christ was wrong in Queen-street, wrong on the Stock Exchange, wrong in the City Council, and wrong their books of political economy? Did they believe that what would have been wrong in Jesus Christ was also wrong for the State, that if It vrould have been wrong in the Christ to protect the strong of the earth at the expense of the the ignorant and the poor, that it would be no lew wrong for the State to do so? Did they believe that if it was wrong for Christ to keep a liquor saloon it was likewise wrong for the State to profit by the protection of strong drink? Did they believe all that? No! and the reason they did not was because they had a false idea of the Kingdom of God.