RELIGIOUS WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 49, 26 February 1916, Page 14

RELIGIOUS WORLD.

WAItfS DUTICTJIiTIES AND DISTRACTIONS. PRIESTHOOD OF THE LAITY. (By BISHOP XELIGAN.) In proposing a resolution at the annual meeting in London of the Church of England Men's Society, the Right Rev. Bishop sTeligan formerly of Auckland), spoke as follows: — I have the honour to propose that this Conference desires to impress upon all members of the C.E.M.S. their special responsibility in the midst of the difficulties and distractions caused by the war to help forward the work of the Church both, at Home and across the seas.

In that resolution the -work of the Church both at Home and overseas ia joined together. And that is right. What happens at home is reproduced in some form or other exceedingly quickly overseas. No part of the Anglican Corananrion to-day liveth to itself— that's worth remembering' as an axiom to begin with. Nest, the points of the resolution are (1) "Difficulties and distractions"; (2) "The call of a great crisis." Let us think of them along these lines. One of the difficulties and distractions is gone, in so far as the old form that it wore is concerned, though, it (has put on another form today. That is. no man can now question the fact of the reality of the devil, the spiritnal rnler of wickedness. Missionaries have been telling us that this is a fact for many years. It is writ large in the teaching of our Lord. St. Paul has made it quite -plain. But, some-how or -other, we didn't quite believe it as a fact of experience, and inclined rather to regard it, as a question of theology. "THE DEVIL IS REAL." That is all gone now. Look at the eyea of the men who have seen the awful thing in France, Flanders, and Gallipoli. The only other men 1 have seen who have that look are missionaries -who have lived in cannibal or leathen parts, and have seen what spiritual "wickedness produces. In my TexperieHce overseas practically every .iMelanesian missionary has the look. I have seen it in the eyes of hundreds of men from the trenches. These soldiers of the King and of the Cross know that the devil is real; they have also seen God face to face. So this difficulty is not new. The war but repeats the call of the ■whether lie be a man ■working at home or overseas. Again, there is no increased or new difficulty about prayer. The paradox of God's will and -man's will has always been, and always will be, there. All that the •war has done has been to make the difficulty plainer and to expose it to public gaze. Before the war devout men and women often thought it was a trouble peculiar to themselves, and certainly not one to be talked about. The war las exposed the particular as being the universal. Once more. The first form of Inter-. ao cession'=eteit was put out contemplate'i the difficulty of poverty being very widespread among the wage-earning section of the population. He Who knowefch our necessities before we ask, and our ignorance in asking , , has practically removed that difficulty through the new economic conditions resulting from the war. It was removed in a way which was not contemplated. So three difficulties seem to be removed, or lessened, or altered.

DAXGERS OF GOSSIP. What others remain 2 A good many. There are undoubted difficulties, and probably the more difficult difficulties remain, juet because the obvious ones don't loom so large in their oid form. They are more distractions than difficulties, and distractions are nasty, horrid, subfile things. they., are not one" bit new things in essence. Go •back to the oid story in the 20th Chapter of the First Book of King 3. "While thy servant was busy hither and thither, 10, the man was gone." And that is a real distraction, and a diffiiulty. "The man goes," and a rather fussy old' -woman is sometimes left. Sometimes the man goes, and sometimes what is left takes the shape of a "rather neurotic, fidgety schoolgirl. Think of some few of the difficulties and distractions. First, criticisms of Generals, and those in authority. Parts of London are the most garrulous, gossipy, idle, talebearing, pessimistic places in, the British Empire to-day. I . late to say -this. I hate saying it, for I love London through and through. I love the ..very smell of it. (Loud laughter.) It is the best place in the 7 world to live in. Now a man who wants and means "to help forward the work of the Church both at home and overseas" has got to shut his ears to all this idle iittle-tattle ; to refuse credence to gossip; to decline to be pessi-i mistic even if asked by -his pet newspaper to be so; to declare himself an optimist. And I use the term "optimist," in the only meaning that it is fit to -bear—namely, that the best is always in front, for the best is God. (Hear, hear.) So to my -brothers of the C.E:M.S. I say—go on with your prayers; keep true; think right; the King reigneth "be the earth never so unquiet."

■ RED-HOT CHRISTIANS WANTED. Second, read the 12th Chapter of the t Epistle to the Hebrews over a<*ain. . These are "shaking" days. But °God means that the things that cannot be shaken shall remain. Neglect details. Stick, for all you are worth, to principles. Never mind the things that .don't matter, hurt cleave to the things that the matter. (Applause.) A new wprld is being created; a new England is iheihg born; a fresh opportunity for the work" of God's Church both at home and overseas is arising. You "can't go on in the old stereotyped way. "The Church," as the body of Christ, doesn't mean the Church of England alone. , (Hear, hear.) God is speaking to the world. The difficulties and distractions are real; but they are not overwhelming, nor all-compelling. The Act of Uniformity cannot bind, for extraordinary conditions, "the free Church of a free people." The very Prayer Book is revising itself, notwithstanding legal and State difficulties and distractions. New conditions demand new methods. The conditions to-day are those of a world-upheaval. They can only be met by men who are burning with the fire of Pentecost, who are illuminated through and through by Him Who is the Light of the World. The men who are coming back from Franco and Flanders and Gallipoli, men who have seen fHell enlarging itself," and who have not fallen therein just because God in His -love (has revealed Himself new to them, look to the old Mother Church, beyond any other body jn this country, to meet their hunger of soul, %a giye them Joed, At borne. andLovcr-

seas it will be the same. I know what the New Zealand Church has been and" is doing. A young Church, like a young nation, can accommodate ilself to new conditions .more easily than an old one. But the old one- has got to do it —or it will find the door of opportunity bolted and barred. And so it is up to CJ3.M.S. men to see that the old Church is not going to fail now. Eed-hot Christians are what we want. Nothing but burning, red-hot enthusiasm for God, for the person of Christ, for the reality of the Holy Ghost, is going to meet the need that has now arisen. The days of privilege are past for ' our Church, except so far as privilege means increased and multiplied responsibilities. (Hear, hear.) The "Hope for all the ends of the earth" is the person of Jesus. The Church which most evidently sets Him before the world, that •most lives His life, is going to bo the Church in which the world will find its hopes realised. With all my soul 1" believe that the Anglican Communion has within it the power for this stupendous work. And equally with all my soul I believe that if C.E.M.S. men all over the world just abandon themselves to the Holy Ghost they can force the old Church to move and to rise to her God-given opportunity. The call of the crisis is to maintain the work, and the pledge of a C.E.M.S. member or associate is to further the work. Put the two things together. They mean— Advancing, taking the trench, consolidating the position. DISPENSE WITH CLERGY. Let mc close by pointing out one way in which this crisis is calling to us, the way which the Church overseas has had to follow for many years. I mean the reality of the active expression of the Priesthood of the Laity. I know there are difficulties at Home which are nonexistent overseas; but I also know— nobody knows it better than an Irishman—that difficulties only exist to be overcome. Just think in this connection, under this heading, of what is happening in your own parishes. Your younger clergy are going out, and they are doing grand work ,as chaplains. (Applause.) And you are rightly thankful and proud. Just 'because you are short-handed, and are proud to be short-handed of clergy because of present conditions, you are learning how to do without lots of things, and to do things for yourselves. You are learning how to do without lots ■of spiritual luxuries. Well, here is one of the ways in ■which the crisis is calling to us. Having found out how to do without, go on, and encourage and expect your younger clergy to go out as missionaries, or to do their spell of Imperial service in the Dominions overseas. You-are learning-how to do without. Go on. C.KM.S. members are by their confirmation priests in the Body of Christ. The crisis calls them to exercise their priesthood. Maintenance of work, both at home and overseas, is the direction for the activity. The call is for converted men, for men who are dead in earnest, men who hear and men who, having heard, respond to the Voice of a crucified Christ, sjjeaking in the welter of a storm-tossed world—ay. and above the clang and roar of battle a Voice that calls:

"0 heart I made, a heart beats here "IrC'Y s '?'"" s3 " uMoot * welWn-Mystir 'of Mf n t^' P9ffcr ' •«"• wyst.con^lve }O .Z e l ,j:aTe tiec - " wlth Mysett to love for thee/™' Mc Who •»S-Med