RELIGIOUS WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 303, 20 December 1913, Page 14

RELIGIOUS WORLD.

"TJULt: LA3SGTJTO SOUK."

(By DR. CHARLES WOOD, Church of the Covenant, Washington.)

"And there Is none that calleth upon thy name that stirreth up himself to take told of thee."—lsaiah C 4. 7.

As a prophet and seer, statesman and reformer, Isaiah was the most remarkable man of his time. The religious age in which he lived was decadent. In whatever direction he looked from the mica windows of his prophet's chamber he saw that it was low tide in the religious life of the chosen people. Everywhere he found wide stretches of sand and seaweed and decay. Prayer had become perfunctory and obsolete.

"Prayer Is better than sleep," is the cry of the muezzin from the Mahammed minarets. Prayer is also the best preparation for sleep. If you 'have given up the habit of saying "Now I lay mc down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep," you could not do better than return to that childish custom and the childlike spirit that made the commonplace words as pleasing to your father in heaven as they were to your parents on earth.

Prayer should precede sleep, but when Bleep begins prayer ends. Jacob, praying at (Bethel, fell asleep and dreamed, nnd his dream may have been the answer to his prayer. He saw the heavens opened and a ladder joining the earth and sky. The dream made the old world a new place 1.-r him. Windows may open in heaven and ladders may rise "from the earth i:i dreams, hut Jacob was wi.le awake when he wrestled with the angel at the brook of Jabbok and conquered. Spiritual victories, like victories of every other sort, arc wo n in struggle and conflict by men who are

alert. Somnolence, listlpssness. and languidness are a more subtle temptation now even more in Isaiah's day, when to his Bad eyes it seemed aB if everybody was •asleep, and that none pulled themselves together a nd stirred up their souls to take ioU of God. There are fewer pirates on the high seas now, probably, than in any previous epoch, but it may bo there aTe more derelicts, more waterlogged vessels, swept up and down, to and fro, doomed never to arrive a menace to every ship with sails set steering a straight course on a momentous mission.

The derelict Teligiously, the man who drifts, bat does not know at what particular point of latitude or longitude on tho moral seas he is to-day. and does not know or care where he is to be to-morrow, is encouraged to continue to be what he is by -modem conditions. The tendency of the times is away from the stern purpose, the determination and resoluteness of other days. The "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise" suggests Luther and Cromwell and Praise God Barebones, and is a little too dramatic for us. We worship the "great god Comfort" and welcome everything that relieves us of an unpleasant effort. Let as much as possible be done for us by men and organizations of men into corporations, or, better still, by machines, which are more dependable than organizations. It i 3 not only by labour-saving inventions that the languid soul is encouraged in its listiessnes3, but as well by tho popular philosophy of the day. "We are a part of all that we have met"-— acquaintances, ancestors, surroundings. "Anthracite is fossiled Toses and man is fossiled ancestors." Everything has been compounded and -mixed together into the conscious entity we call ourselves, but without the power of initiation or decision.

With earth's first clay they did the last man knead. And there of the last harvests sow the seed, And the first morning of creation wrote .What the last dawn of reckoning shall read.

So sings Omar Khayyam, the most popular poet of modem clubs, restaurants, and places of amusement. That is, we are automata, merely registering determinations and decisions made for us and about us ages ago. Why stir ourselves up uselessly when all we can hope to do is to create sound and foam, signifying nothing on the surface of life ?

But this philosophy of Vanity Fair is already becoming antiquated. One of our American philosophers, Prof. Fiske, ha 3 pierced the heart of this necessitarianism with the keen rapier of his logic. "If all 'has been foredoomed, determined, may you and I then have been foredoomed to the error of con- i tinuing to believe in liberty':" The man i who continues to believe in liberty as a reality, and acts on that belief, will I find that he is under no compulsion to '■ drift. If we care to stir ourselves up to : , action we can act as we choose. The most popular of all the modern' - French philosophers, Henri Bcrgson, who \ ■ has just been lecturing in our country, says: "Life must be a constant progress : in the individual, attained only by con- . Bcious and definite acts of the will. Man ! , is free to choose between spiritual life ■ and spiritual death." CHURCH NEWS AND NOTES. In the light of a recent utterance in Auckland anent the -worst he-resy being undeno-miitta'tionalifim, it is of interest to note that Canon Alexander,, preaching, at St. -Paul's,. London, -recently 6aid-: "If - the Church of -our day is to escape from ' (the temper of controversy and (from the , spiritual .pride which it too .often intensifies, it must be by coneentra-hioa on the life and character and passion of its Lord. The first question for the parti- j sain to ask himself touching- one from ; whom he differs is wihethe-r he is a man of real piety and earnestness and of - true devotion to the same Master. If he is, here, amid whatever difference of view, is a deep spiritual basis on which the two may meet as friends. It is in ' preaching of Christ's own person, of Christ's living and dying, hoping and suffering for men, that t-he vital strength of Chis-tian theology will always be found. It is on the common ground of a living attachment to His -person that Christian reunion will, if ever, be rea- - lised."

The Rev. T. Lewis has just retired from the pastorate of the Berea Congregational Church, Wales, after holding that position for -half a ce-.vi.urv.

Unfermented wine is now used .it communion services in 1.3P0 churches in Scotland.

The Methodists of Vancouver I,avc decided to have missionary. picture theatres of their own, controlled by a company with a capital of £20,000.

The Rev, Arthur Soweruy, of the Bapu » Missionary Society, has been appointed tutor to the sons of the President of the Chinese Republic HF Yuan Shih-kai. '

An effort is being made to get the Mission parry to risit South Africa in 1814-15.

The Emperor ■oi Germany has presented to the British Organisation of the World's Evangelical Alliance a person-ally-signed and framed portrait copy of t-he' well-known painting by Professor Lasslo, representing him in the full -uniform <yf the Garde de Corps.

The Rev. E. Palgrave Davy, minister of the Simla Union Church, resigned in order to join his family in New Zealand. At the earnest request of the congregation, Mr. Davy has withdrawn his resignation and left for New Zealand on leave.

Mr. -E. K. Lom-as. who is going to Korea on behalf of the Presbyteriaji Church of Victoria, is a New Zealander. He was science master at the Teachers' Training College, Wellington, and at one time captain of .the Otago University football team.

Mr. J. B. Spencer, president of the Australian Christian Endeavour Union, who recently returned to Sydney after a trip to the Old Country, ihas been giving some of his impressions of the street scenes in London on Sunday evenings. These he referred to as picture shows and variety entertainments, open after church hours, -which -were att-ra-cting ■huge audiences. The publichomses, too, were drawing in another crowd; men a-n-d women gathered iv the bars, and on the footpaths young (men and girls drank together, while tlie children mingled amongst them, and t-he babies lay in perambul-atoTS outside the doors. Sunday .picnicking, too. Was -much in evidence. In New York Mr. Spencer found tha-t in many oif the churches during the hot weather services were held in the ■afternoon at four o'clock, instead of in the evening, and these were well attended.

The Rev. A. J. H. [Priest, formerly of the Anglican Church Missionary Association of Australia, has been appointed editor -of .the "Church Record," a new weekly Anglican paper to be issued in Sydney- next month. With the new paper will be incorporated the "ChiiTch Record" of Sydney and the Victorian "Churchman of Melbourne.

I The Rev. ,1. Watte-Ditohfield. who visiie-d New Zealand a ebort whilo ago !in the interests of tlie C.E.M.S. organiIsation, has, in the course of an address [recently published, warned clergy against over-indulgence in sleep and late appearance at breakfast. He also advised district, visitors to get in touch with people, if possible, .on their weak side. The following is his illustration: "Some time ago, while .talking to a woman on her doorstep, I caught sigiht of a squirrel, which I learned was a great pet of the husband, whom I wanted to reach. I re<id ip 'Squirrels,' and then called to see the man, who at fi-rst was rather gruff, -until I said, 'Oh, the other day I saw yoti had a squirrel, and I wondered whether I might see it at close quarters.' Then I talked 'Encyclopaedia Brit-annica' on squirrels until tbe man hegam to i think I knew what I was talking about. I'Squirrels' got him, and -he came to the men's services." I The Rev. T. Tail, of Knox Church, ChrLstchuToh, -who has received a call •from Chalmers Church, Adelaide, has received ■o. second one -from a Melbourne church. The Rev. J. Hornsby Spear, of Sydney, is at present visiting Nelson. Many yeia-rs ag-o the rev. gentleman was attached to the Nelson diocese. Bishop Grimes, <tf Christchureh, has ret-u-nned from his yiis.it -to Rome.

"Drink is not the principal evil the Church has to combat in New Zealand," remarked the Rev. R. -Mitchell in the course of .his sermon last Sunday night at Beres-ford Street Congregational Oh-UTch. "A far worse evil is the gambling, '-which is sapping the vitals of the people."

The Bishop of London, speaking at the Fulham Ladies' Association for Tescue and preventive work, related the downfall of a young, good-manneT«d girl employed in a .prosperous West End establishment at 8/G per week, out of which she had to pay for her lodgings. The Bishop said: "We have a duty to perform. We ought never to take subscriptions from people -who make their money under 6Ueh circumstances. The Church, in the first place, ought to make it absolutely impossible for people to make their money out of the life-blood jof poor -girls."