RELIGIOUS WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 78, 3 April 1926, Page 22

RELIGIOUS WORLD.

PRESENT DAY OUTLOOK. (Contributed.) THE FUTURE LIFE. PROFESSOR PATERSON'S GIFFORD LECTURE. The very Rev. Professor W. P. Paterson, in this final Gifford lecture, dealt with the question of "The Future Life." A great scholar and theologian, Professor Paterson at once riverted attention when he said that one of the oldest and tritest of themes was "If a man die shall he live again?" yet none seemed more novel and fresh to every generation, and to every new pilgrim of the planet. Like the idea of God, the idue of a future life -was in possession, and it -was supported by no less a weight of authority. The human race as a whole had believed in it both in youth and manhood, in the ages of barbarism, and in its ages of civilisation. The doctrine was of the very substance of the lower religions, and in Christianity it was reaffirmed in the most spiritual form, and was enriched by additional promises and guarantees. At the same time there had always ! been a minority which thought that man perished like the brutes, and the ; minority was probably now larger than | In any former period. The chief argument on the negative side was that the mind is dependent on the body at every stage, and ie seemed the natural inference that the dissolution of the bodily frame involved the extinction of the soul. But it had been pointed out by a j series of notable thinkers, from Plato down to William James, that this inference was unwarranted, since the brain is to the soul what his instrument is to a musician, and the musician does riot die when his instrument becomes unplayable. An Ineradicable Conviction. Modern psychology had also been unfavourable to the belief, as it seemed to have got rid of the idea of a soul, and had made it difficult to see what there was to survive when the stream of experiences ceased to flow. It was, however, an ineradicable conviction that there is a unitary self which is related to the stream of experiences, as a noun is related to its adjectives and verbs, and for thiß self-continuity of existence would continue to be claimed. It had also become more difficult to believe in human immortality in view of the vast numbers and the antiquity of the human race, and especially of the quality of savage and prehistoric man. But to think that they could not all be preserved, or were not worth preserving, was to impute to the Father of Spirits the limitations* and the prejudices of our own narrow outlook. In the general judgment the objections had been outweighed by the imposing array of arguments which had been impounded j in vindication of the great anthropological article of the universal creed. A preliminary consideration of much weight was that survival was certainly possible; the Power which had wrought the miracle of bringing us into conscious existence must surely be capable of working the leaser marvel of continuing us in existence. The older arguments could be reduced to four : types. The first, which might be called the pneumatological, was that the soul ' is of euch a. nature and dignity that it is entitled and destined to survive ' the physical catastrophe- of death. i The second, the teleological, was to the effect that growth points to maturity and progress to an end, and that our 1 developed intellect and character repre-. sent a stage in a process of becom-j ing which adumbrates a goal that will ' be reached at a future stage of exist- 1 ence. " "" ] The Chief Satisfaction. f The third was the moral argument, which affirmed the doctrine of immortality as implied in various ways in I the facts of the moral constitution and of \ the moral life of man. The fourth, the theological, contended for immortality I as a eonollary of the doctrines of God as the Almighty, the All-wise, and the J All-good. It was in this last argument, he added, that his own mind found its chief satisfaction. Hia basal certainly was God; he was -, much surer of God than he was of a future life, and it was because he be- t heved in God that he cherished the hope } of immortality. Nor did he find that _ he would aye any desire of immortality. ! if his fatfb, of God Bhould fail him as' he would have any desire of immortality \ of living on in a mindless and unethical universe. A Reasonable Belief. C On the general question, he concluded t the arguments had a cumulative weight' v which justified the assertion that belie: c in a future life was a reasonable belief 11 At the same time, the question had bee« put in the position that something was c left to the will in the final determina- 1 tion to belief or disbelief. The mind was"- "* not coerced by irresistible evidence such j $ as led them to believe in the existence of the Continnt of America and of its' -, population. I - And though we might have preferred ] it otherwise, the situation was attended ' with sane spiritual advantages. It was ! ' a test of character whether, we really j, descried a future life, what kind we ' I desired, and whether we were able to! believe in it. Again, when the con-' a vietion was reached by personal decision, ! and was maintained against the gain- • say of a sceptical age, it became a j * precious possession, and had more power t to inspire, to ennoble, to fortify the life. And, finally, when the natural order r of things was not one which absolutely | „ guaranteed future existence, the soul : | was impelled to throw itself in childlike trust upon God, and to seek the c protection of the everlasting arms. J t: EASTER OFFERINGS. a r< A rubric in the Prayer Book states q "And note that every parishioner shall j] communicate at least three times in w the year, of which Easter to be one. 41 And yearly at Easter every parishioner Shall reckon with the parson, vicar or curate or his or their deputy or depu- 8f ties and pay to them or him all eccle- 01 £?_?«??!?• accus t°mably due, then is ever L*** tHne *° * P aid " Ha ™ ?<>u tl ?" eh ; r , what ti Parson! Do U™ *_? y ° U to r our "1 *°r twelve _&_£_ m anything? •' is J-J" h . aS been at j fi, any time ot t at ?fj to c ? me to you tl v trouble. Fortws our of ne ed or re given you ™ * hasS U and in the church. the « ft ■ • ypu have b,

availed yourself of it regularly or very occasionally is not his fault. Have you given your share towards your parson's upkeep during the past year? In days gone by, when our forefathers' ben factions towards the endowment of 01 churches more or less enabled the pa son to pay his way, and when the clerj Avere largely drawn from the famili of the rich, then the Easter offering w: a little gift that came in as an exti and the parson rejoiced in it as we c over a present that signifies some one appreciation of us, but in these da; he not only rejoices over it as a pr sent, but too often he has to look f< it with necessitous anxiety because i amount will settle for him whether 1 shall have freedom from I/naneial can for another year. At Easter you wi have your opportunity.—"Home Words DEATH OF NOTED CANON. By the sudden death on February 1 of Canon Arthur Henry Coombee, Cano of Chichester Cathedral, the church lose a man who had Worked in many field Born in 1862 in Oxford, he obtained scholarship at St. John's College in 188! where he distinguished himself in mathi matics. After an assistant masterehi at Dover College he became a master i King's College, Parramatta, from 188 to 1900, being ordained while he was i Australia. Returning to England, h was a master at Clifton for two jpeari and then was made head of Hurs'tpieJ point, where he remained twenty yeari In 1023 lie waa appointed C&riOn c Chichester. Canon Coombes travelle extensively, riot only in Australia, bu also in New Zealand, where he wa known as a keen philatelist.* CURRENT NOTES. Fewer but stronger ones* i Dr. C. E. Burton's Statement of the posi tion of the Congregational cause i America. In Turkey clerical dress is being aba* doned excepting during hours of-service Moslem, Jewish and Orthodox are state to have appeared in bowiefs and civilia; clothes. A good story was told by the Rev John, M.A. He had been telling a Sunda; Bchool class that the Locarno agreemen meant •peace for 60 years. One littl boy asked: "Did you say fifty years bhen I shall be sixty, and too old." Lord Hugh Cecil said at Shrewsbury that Christian unity is the real solutioi af the international peace problem. H added: "Surely to the great sin o schism' could Tw attributed the begin ning of the national antagonism whicl mlminated in the Great World War.' When the veteran minister of Penarth Rev. David Davies, as a young man tool the pastorate at Regent's Park, London Charles Haddon Spurgeon warned him Tou must not remain too long al Regent* Park; you cannot very wel ight a fire on an iceberg." Mr. V. Burch, Doctor of Theology M.A., has been appointed to the Liver pool Cathedral staff as lay lecturer foi )ne year from next January. He wil ict under Canon Raven, who directs th( ectures and classes both for the clergj md laity, out of which it is hoped tc levelop a Cathedral School of Theology In connection -with the salving of th< 3erman Fleet that was sunk at Scaps s*low, a large number of the workers ire accommodated in huts along the hore of an isolated part of the cost Che nearest branch of the Salvatior Vrmy undertook the task of visiting hese lonely men and holding religious ervices. The "Presbyterian Advance" states hat Mr. A. L. Kindred was expelled Tom membership of his Church at loshen, Indiana, because the elders laintained that "if God Almighty had ranted the gladioli hybridised He 'ould have made them that way." Mr. _ndred is an expert at hybridising ladioli. Mr. J. A. R. Cairns, the magistrate at be Thames Police Court, himself a Presyterian, advised two contentious lebrew prisoners to "Go to the -synaogue and read the Psalm which contains he words, "Behold, how good and leasant it is for (brethren to dwell Dgether in unity." At the close of his remarks at a conwence held in Bournemouth, the P~sv. . D. Jones, who was sitting between Jamaican negro and a turbaned [indu, said: "Here is an illustration of hristian internationalism. We repremt three different races, but we have >rgotten all about our -distinctions of ice,' because we are just brothers in bsus Christ." A Japanese priest, the Her. J. K. chiai, D.D., is expected to visit Ausalia for three months. His degrees ere conferred by the General Theologiil Seminary of the Episcopal Church in .S.A., and he has been lecturer in Old estament and Hebrew in a Japanese illege, of which he is now the principal, te is described as "a sound scholar, a cry good English speaker, a cultured entleman, and a well-read Christian." Rabbi Wise, of the Free Synagogus, •__ t? ' has been Siting into trouble 'ith his compatriots through a speech c made recently at Carnegi Hall, New 'ork. The Rabbi has discovered a fact 'hich Sunday school children have nown for about two thousand years; hat is, that Jesus of Nazareth was not myth. He announced his discovery to a amazed world, and went on -to say lat the Jews must embrace the teachlgs of Jesus, which comprise a code of hies unparalleled in any writings of istory. —"Church Work" (Canada). The magnificent jubilee banquet and sception at the Royal Alexandra hotel, :ven recently in honour of the fiftieth miversary of the ordination into the inistry of Archbishop Matheson Anglim Primate of all Canada, will be long imembered by all who participated in ie event. No one of the 900 guests isembled in the main dining room will adily forget the remarkable reception icorded the Archbishop. After the bantet his Grace was asked to accept an luminated address on purple and suede, iich had been signed by more than 00 members. J The Episcopal Church of ••- America mc time ago appointed a commission Christian healing, which has now I sued its report. The commission finds ' at the healing power of reiigious ! ought is gaining an ever greater hold on the Christian mind, and that there a rapidly-increasing desire for conmation by the Church of the belief at there is therapeutic value in the iristian religion. It points out that ligious and material means for cure list go hand in hand, and that faith God and faith in the physician must j Wended for th« best results. j