RELIGIOUS WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 41, 16 February 1918, Page 14

RELIGIOUS WORLD.

OB RATHER ! ' ; (By REV. J. H. JOWETT, D.D.) "But now, after that ye have known God, or are known of God." The latter way of stating the believer's •wealth was to Paul far the more wonderful. It was a "rather" that opened out vistas that were unutterable. Whenever, in any of his letters, he comes in sight of the glory his soul breaks forth in rapturous doxology. In a certain way !N'athaniel knew Jesus, but when he discovered that he was known of Jesus the fountains of a holier wonder began to flow. And so it was with Zaccheus; he had a faint elementary knowledge of the Christ, but when it unexpectedly dawned upon him that he was known of Christ springs of joy welled forth which he had never experienced before. But in a loftier and still more sacred sense, a sense into which Nathaniel and Zaccheus entered at a later day, the apostle Paul gloried in the consciousness that he was known of the redeeming God, who had gone forth among the children of men in the saving ministry of love and grace.

For God's knowledge of Paul was not the mere knowledge of perception, or of discrimination, or of dry intelligence, but tne knowledge of which love is the organ, the yearning, imparting, hallowing communion of the Father's heart. When, therefore, Paul speaks of God's knowledge of him he does not think of it as dazzling heavenly rays falling upon him as the beams of a searchlight fall upon & cottage on some bleak and desolate shore. It is the knowledge of a communion—perhaps a road more than a light— a road filled with Divine commerce, even the marvellous riches of redeeming Jove. In that knowledge are combined the secrets of heavenly wisdom, the gifts of Divine love, and the ministries of eternal grace. In that knowledge Paul found his rest, and his hope of one day awaking in the likeness of his Lord.

CHXTHCH NEWS AND NOTES.

Rev. Frederick R. Smith, author of "Clog Shop Chronicles," and a number of other stories and sketches of Lancashire Methodist life, under the pen name of "John Ackworth," died at Burnley, aged 63 years. His great-grandfather, two Jrrandfathers, father, and seven uncles ivere all Methodist preachers. He was "accepted for the Wesl°yan ministry in 1576, trained at Headingley College, and, ■with the exception of a term in the Isle of Man and another at Worthing, spent the whole of his 33 years' ministry in Lancashire and Yorkshire. He retired in 1»12.

Mrs. Coltman, 8.D., one of Dr. W. Orchard's assistants, has been fully accredited a minister by the London Congregational Union Council.

The Rev. James T. Tunstall, a Methodist chaplain, has been awarded the Military Cross, in recognition of his services in attending the wounded for sixty hours without food or water, after the successful attack on Polygon Wood. The Rev. Robert Church, who recently died in England, aged 98 years, was the oldest Primitive Methodist minister. He ■was in active ministry for 55 years, and retired on superannuation 21 "years ago. He preached three weeks before his death.

Referring to a recently published work on the life of St. Francis Xavier, evangelist, explorer, and mystic, the "British Weekly" states: "Roman Catholics, as "well as Protestants, will, we think, give ft cordial welcome to this book. Francis Xavier belongs not to one particular society, one 'body of believers, but to the ■whole Christian Church."

The Very Rev. W. J. Likington, S.J., ■who visited New Zealand some months ago, has been appointed Provincial ot the Jesuit Order in Australia.

Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis, who has ■been speaking against German agitators in America, received an illiterate scrawl, •written in pencil, threatening to shoot him if he appeared on the platform in Chicago. Dr. Hillis ignored the anonymous threat and fulfiJled his Chicago engagement. He mentioned at tne meeting that he had received a black hand threat, but gave no details. Other ministers who had been supporting American intervention have received •imilar threats. Dr. C. A. Eaton, of Madison Avenue Baptist Church, has been the recipient of hundreds of vilifying and threatening letters and of postcards so indecent that the postmaster cent them under special seal so that hie family should not see them.

The Rev. R. W. Thompson, M.A., 8.D., cf St. George Road Congregational Church, read the leesone in Manchester Cathedral, when the Judge's Circuit the Assize attended divina service. Mr. \ Thompson holds the office of chaplain to ' the High Sheriff, and it was by the mvi- f tation of Dean Weldon that he took part |

in the service The X F

cv . axner v joeirne, ol uartertoti, in charge of South Wairarapa Parish for the past two years, leavee shortly for England to take up -work at.the hospitak for the Church.

Dr. Weeks, Dean of Kelson, has declined an invitation to the rectory ot Toorak.

The Rev. Father C. Yenning, S.M., •who has been assistant parish priest at St. .Mary of the Angels, Boulcott Street, Wellington, has been transferred to Jerusalem, Wanganui River, to take up duty ac a Maori missioner. On the eve of his departure a very large number of the parishioners met at the library, to <vish him success in his new sphere of labour, father Yenning was also presented witn a roll of notes, in place of a purse ot sovereigns, ac gold is n °t ntnv Bo easily obtained.

The Rev. A. Richards, a former vicar of St. Sepulchre'e, Khyber Pass, ie now ricar of Pleehej-, Eaaex, England.

The Rev. Father Maurice P. Carroll, •who died in Melbourne recently, was for 20 years parish pricet of Flemington.. The Baptist Union of Great Britain addressed a message to the Russian Baptists, congratulating them on the Revolution and the entrance of Russia into the fraternity of the free peoples of the world. The special purpose of the nddress was to express the delight With which Baptists in Great Britain had learned that their brethren in Russia, who had so long suffered persecution for conscience' sake, had now the same religious freedom as themselves. They also thanked God that this sudden and eplendid extension of political ana religious liberty in Russia is in part the result of the saintly lives, the courage and fortitude of Baptists in that land, and the persistence with which, in spite of "brutal methods of compulsion and repression," they have proclaimed the teaching of the New Testament. The address i 8 signed by Dr. Clifford, ac exPresident of the Baptist World Alliance, and by Revß. \V. Y. Fullerton, and J. U. + ?* iS P° rh »Pß as well to explam that this was sent last Xovemciated. wbo so m uch appre-