CURRENT NEWS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 142, 17 June 1922, Page 18

CURRENT NEWS.

The Auckland Auxiliary of the Bible Society is having a Bible Sunday in the city and suburbs on June 18, when there will be v general interchange of pulpits.

The English Wesleynn Foreign Missionary Society, at its annual meeting last month, showed a debt of nearly £ 17.000, 'but the treasurer, Mr. Williamson Laraplough, announced that he had received that morning a cheque from a friend which entirely wiped out the ilell.ii -

T'ne Rev. Father Charles Morrogh, S.J.. who died recently at St. Ignatius Presbytery. Richmond. Victoria, aged 77 years! arrived in Australia in 1880, was for twenty years with tlie Hawthorn Mission, and" another twenty-two with the St. Ignatius Mission.

At a special meeting of the Congregational Union of Victoria it was decided to recommend the assembly of the Congregational Union of Australia and Xew Zealand to adopt the amended basis of union as one on which the churches concerned might reasonably unite.

Over £.3000 has been spent in acquiring ten acres of land and two substantial brick houses on the slopes of Vauxliall. Anderson's Bay, Dunedin, for an Anglican Memorial Home for Boys. Twelve beds have been endowed in memory of boys who laid down their lives for the country during the late war. At present over thirty boys are accommodated in the Home.

Statistics of tho Anglican Church in America s-imw si steady growth. There are now more than 0,000 clergy, of whom over :'.OO are in the mission lield; candidate-* for ordination total nearly r.rniil. and the lav_ leaders, exceed 8,_00; S.3OH odd churches are in existence: 7"_',200 baptisms were celebrated last year, and over 01.000 were contlrmed. the total communicants' roll—which increased by 17.000 during the year, now exceeding 1.100.000. There are half a million Sunday scholars, and the voluntary offerings' reached .07.000.000. exclusive of contributions for charitable purposes and many groat gifts privately made to the. parishes.

Latest reports to hand indicate that. Seventh Day Advetilists arc now operating in 10S countries, with 15:1 mission stations. Tiie organisation embodies 129 local State conferences and ol Union conferences and niit-sions. In 1920 there were 185,450 members enrolled throughout the world, besides thousands ofi adherents. Their 41! publishing houses are issuing literature in 94 different languages. A specialty i_ made of educational work, for there are 114 colleges and academics and 928 primary schools conducted by the denomination. In their thirty-three sanaxorittms is taught in ii practical way the gospel of healthful living, and Christ as the Great Physician. The total investments of the organisation in 1920 came to over £0,000.000.

Mr. W. C. Pearce, reprcscutative of the World's Sunday School Association, who is at present on a world tour of investition of Sunday school conditions, is expected to arrive in Auckland from Australia next Monday. He will address a public meeting in the Town Hall Concert Chamber, a united gathering of Sunday school workers, and the Rotary Club. Sir. Pearce has made a great impression in Australia, and very largely attended meetings have been held in the chief Australian cities. He has recently completed nn investigation of conditions in Moslem lands, such as Palestine. Turkey, Egypt and Algeria, India. Burma, and Malaysia, Mr. Pearce was for eighteen years prominently connected with the International Sunday School Association, and was responsible for the starting of the treat summer training schools for religious workers, which are such a prominent feature of the religious life of America. He has attended the Sunday school conventions at Cuba, Jerusalem.. Rome, Zurich, and Tokyo.

The efficacy 0 i prayer i* hardly the subject that might lie expected to be discussed at tbe Royal College of Medicine, London, but when considering plague precautions one speaker pointed out. rather as a reflection upon the skill of the old-time physicians, that the first of an official set of recommendations to the public oil how to ward off the plague should have been, not some herbal mixture or hygienic precaution, but simply to betake themselves to prayer. Dr. Fi G. Crookshank. of Harley SAreet. however, contended that the old physicians were right. He said that he did not want to enter upon theological controversy, and there might be some present who would argue that prayer had only a subjective value, if if. had any value at all. But it. was an undoubted fact that people—like those in religious orders, for example—who carried out regular spiritual exercises were far less likely than others to take infection durir*; epidemics. Certainly to suggest prayer was far more to the point than to suggest the drinking of rum, which a popular newspaper had urged as being likely to stave off influenxa, and which would have as much value as the drinking of sack, -which wa.s recommended as a stay against plague in the sixteenth century.

Bishop Weldon recently stated in London that Christian re-union would solve the religious problem in education. He said nothing had perhaps done more harm to the Christian churches than the failure to arrive at a concordat \rt\irf\ would enable religious teaching to lie given in all the elementary schools. The Bis-hop said one result of compulsory education had been that parents did not read _he Bible with the children as they used to do: they did not pray with them or take them to church. Religious teaching, to be effective, must be part of the curriculum in all elementary and secondary schools. Let the churches unite and religious education in tlie schools would be assured. The Free Churches had already agreed upon a syllabus of Christian teaching, and it was all, or nearly all, that the Church of England should require. "Are you," he asked,, '''"wholly satisfied with tho. results of elementary education in the last fifty years? Has tlie new generation which 'ha- been 'brought up since 1870 shown a more enlightened patriotism, a more lofty morality, a more selfsacrificing devotion to the; welfare of the State as a "whole than the generation wlhieb preceded it? The reply 1 give to my own question.falters on ray lips. There must 'bo religious teaching, subject, of course, to a conscience clause, as a regular part of the curriculum in aill schools. It must be given iby the teachers themselves, if they are willing, hut let no teacher be penalised in any manner or degree for not giving it." "Who could doubt, he asked, that as society in all its classes drew away from a moral standard of Christ, there was a tendency to destroy the Christian home .life.