RELIGIOUS WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 254, 23 October 1920, Page 18

RELIGIOUS WORLD.

CHURCH NEWS AND NOTES. The ]>v. Rrn. Valerian, of the Marisi j lirothers" Selmnl. (ircymnuth. aho was! in l.cwisham Hiwpitiil for Mime weeks.] Ims stiflirifiilly nvuvrri-il In uo for n rest j i'> Timnrii I I Thp Rev. William K. Snolhill. M.A..1 formerly lioail nf i In- I'nitod Mi-thodi.-i ' Mission ;it Wim-hnw, has been appointed i Professor "f Chinese iv thp I'niversitv i>l ; ••xford. " ! I l.onl F'iilwiirt!.. wrinsp donth occurred jpeently in Scotland at thp agp of W2 roars u.i- n well known ivangelieal preacher, lie conducted racctinj.'s in ihiii-'.-liPs iind hull* over Hip ivhulo i>l Southern Sootlanil. and during tin- \ Nit nf Moody and SiinUey, many vcars ago, was oik , of their mo-t enthusiast i<Helpers. Lord Pohvarth wan tin- eighth "baron, nnd succeeded hi* father in 18(57. The Rev. I. Alston related recently i ,l Kngland, when speaking on brhalf of the I British ami Foreign lsiblc Society, how a ' grammar and dictionary of the'lbo language, the work of many years by n South Nigerian missionary, wars lost, on ihe way liuino owing to l.'ie vessel beiirj torpedoed. The compiler lost hi* life, hut the .MSS. was recently found in a i-rcvi.-e on the rocks of the Welsh coast. I and would in due course he published. The old scholar - ? letter issued in connection with the 50th anniversary of Xowton Congregational Sunday School this week is from the pen' of Mrs. Florence Mary Warner, wife of the Rev. Frederic Warner, Minister of Beresford •Street Church, who was in bygone years minister nt Newton, prior to goilig to Australia The letter this year is addressed to the women who were former scholars at Newton. During the year another fifteen names were added to the roll of honour of those who took part in the late war. During the past year nine old workers at Newton died. 'The Rev. William Stevenson Jafi'ry. Deputy Chaplain of the Forces, has received the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity by Edinburgh University. He hus lengthy war service, being specially promoted during the South African trouble for distinguished service in the field. When the late war broke out Mr JafTry went to France with the British Expeditionary Force in 1914, and was created a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. G-eorge. In 1916 he was transierred to Salonika, where he acted as principal chaplain, was mentioned in dispatches, and created Commander or the Order of the British Empire. Rev. T. Rhonda Wiliiams, in advocating a world-wide movement to ensure peace for the future, suggests that instead of spending £3,000,000 for red uniforms for the British Army, they should set up a peace office to spend money on propaganda to avert future war. "It would be a good thing," he said, "if a League of Nations' flag was devised and one flying in every church and synagogue throughout the country." lie stated that that would arrest attention, and show that the churches, in spite of their differences, stood united on a great cause of bucli immense importance to humanity. They should take a Jeaf out of the book of the War Makers, who had flags and symbols everywhere. Dr. Albert Feet, M.A. Litt, B. Litfc., has published two pamphlets on "Kirst Congregational Churches" and "The Brownists iv Norwich and Norfolk." He claims that the first Congregational ehurchcß were in London, 1507-81. Dr. Teet also suggeste that the title of "Brownists may have emanated not from Robert Browne, of Norwich, but John Browne, who ministered to a congregation in London. Iv a pamphlet issued in 1583 Browne and one Robert Harrison set forth their belief that "true ehurohes are to be foimed only by-Chris-tians gathering out of and separating from the world, appointing their own ministers and officers." That is practically the same rule as was adopted by the Independents, who afterwards changed their name to Congregatioiialists. in the early days of Auckland there was an Independent Chapel in Albert Street, another in High Street, and a, third near the Reservoir aite in liarangaihapo Road. i Some discoveries ot great interest to Bible students have been made as a result of excavations made by agents of the British Museum amid the ruins of Carc'hmish, by the river Euphrates. Jeremiah wrote of a great defeat of the Egyptians by the waters of the Euphrates, but the Iliaraohs had no record of it emblazoned on the walls of Thebes or Memphis. Still the recent excavations have corroborated Jeremiah's story of what occurred 2,500 years ago. Nebuchadnezzcr, then Crown Prince of Babylon, inflicted a crushing defeat on Pharaoh-Xecho. The excavations revealed beneath a great house in the eastern residential quarter of the ancient Hittite stronghold, heaped up round every doorway, masses of bronze and iron arrow heads, spearheads, and fractured swords, bearing witness to the rigour of the hand-to-hand conflict from room to room. A bronze shield of a Greek auxiliary of the Egyptians has been found, also four seal impressions from papyrus documents bearing the name of Necho himself. Archdeacon Charles, in Westminster Abbey on a recent Sunday, referred to those Anglicans who agitate against divorce under any circumstances, against the remarriage of innocent parties in divorce cases, and against receiving bucli remarried persons at the Communion table. Dr. Charles showed that there was no basis for this ban in the teaching of Christ, who allowed the right of divorce on the ground of adultery, and the remarriage of the guiltless person concerned. He also took the view that Christ forbade divorce on any lesser ground. In the Gospels of Matthew and Mark only, the question of divorce for offences less than adultery, ho said, were dealt with. He spoke very severely' of the ecclesiastics who lord it so mercilessly over their (lock that by their misrepresentations 'they have made the heart of the righteous sad whom Ood hath not made sad," and, like their forerunners in the New Testament made void the teaching of uhriat by their traditions. In the Hackney deanery of the London diocese the "eleray h ave pledged .themselves not to remarry any divorcee, whether B i nned againßt J r mng. Persons wishing to marry will be required to fill a declaration form one ~f the questions on which wi H be about divorce. More than 30 churches will be affected by this decision, and parishioners affected by the ban -will haye to qualify in another parieTi or be married jn a Nonconformist church or at a registry office.