CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume 304, Issue 304, 23 December 1926, Page 11 (Supplement)

CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY.

''Christmas is a return to simplicity. 1 and that way lies permanence of national j greatness. There is nothing artificial. I nothing hurtful about Christmas games | and joy and fun." writes Mr. James Learjmount in the "Wesleyan Methodist Magaj zinc." "If Christmas ceases to be posI sible. if we lose the taste for simple. | natural pleasures, then we have arrived I ] at the state reached by nations that have ceased to be great. The decay of nations ' I always begins when simplicity goes out. j I We cannot afford to let Christmas go. It I is a sample day put in by God to keep m ' ! the world from rotting. Shakespeare says: 3 The yearl- course .that brings this day abou; 7 Shall ever see it but a holiday. 0 ".After all. i: is the spirit of Christmas we want', and nothing now can kill Christmas until every day is permeated by it, helpful spirit: then as a day it may Ij. 3 merged for ever in the everyday of life ° Till then, may the home-festival aspect 0 of Christmas still be the pirncipal method 6 of celebrating the day: o Speaking to Sunday school teachers at the Convention in Hull, the Eev. Campbell Morgan said: "You must not be di--heartened if you do not see immediate results, or be tempted to standardise salvation. The salvation that cannot be dated may be as real as the conversion that can be marked in the calendar. 1 Take large views of salvation. It • . includes the bodies as well as the souls."

CTJKEENT NOTES. j Does not the course of history prove that tenderness toward the fallen is ! pre-eminently a Christian grace? In one of Edtrar Wallace's African books, a j native chief who has been rescued, severely wounded, from a battlefield, j expresses amazement that he sJnould j have been thus generously treated. I "This is a terribly strange thing you do. lord." said the fighting captain, "saving those who are hurt to death." "This : [is the way of the new King." said; Sanders, "and the law he brings."— ' ; "British Weekly." j I "Dean Inge never hesitates to gay what' jhe thinks, and to say it vigorously and | i plainly, robustly and forcibly," writes ; j "Greenjade" in the "Sunday Express." ' ' "He is neither a flatterer nor a timeserver, and I thmk his candour is the. j secret of his 'prophesying. He occupies I to-day in the Anglo-Saxon or English- j j -peaking world a position analogous to \ ! that once held by Carlyle or Matthew' [Arnold. On both sides of the Atlantic his 1 voice is potent and provocative." i " i ! A club house for girls and women is \ be in _r erected in London by the Y.W.C.A a: a" cost of £250.000. The site covers ' l».00o sq ft between Tottenham Court ; , Road and Oxford Street. Some of the j church leaders in Scotland, realising how | great has been the growth of Communism amongst the miners since the strike, have arranged for competent speakers to ! visit certain districts and point out the fallaciousness of the arguments used. It | ,is stated that the campaign was not a j success own.? to the excited state of the ! i men in the districts visited. ( I a ■ • - _. - I A great missionary campaign is oemg j organised, writes the South African cori respondent of the "Guardian," to cover j the whole of South Africa in the course i !of the next two or three years. Two ! teams of experienced missionaries are to j visit the dioceses of Grahamstown and I Capetown this year, to hold meetings and j preach sermons in all the parishes. The : Bishop of Johannesburg will lead the ! team for Capetown, and the Bishop of IS. John's the team for Grahamstown. | The object of the campaign is to awaken ' in the hearts and minds of church people I the paramount need to evangelise the | vast hordes of heathen within our own j | borders. . j The following is an extract from an article in "The Guardian" headed "Par- ■ sons' Wives." j I hymn the praises of the parson's i wife. The grace of Orders she lacks, but all other graces are hers to re- ! pletion. She has made herself essential jto the Church, and the Church rises to j ido her honour, putting fresh opportunij ties of service in her way, and givins. i j her a seat on the P.C.C. into the bargain. I i _et. in spite of her increased importance the strong wine of popular favour has ' ! not turned her head. Rather does she ' j seem to have gained poise, and to hay. j j improved her sense of proportion. j In his latest book, Bishop Gore comi pares the disastrous individualism of ' i later Christianity with the strong 1 brotherhood of the Christian Church !at the beginning. Bishop Gore points I out that an individual congTe_raj tion _s tempted to regard its own parti- ! cular associations, its customs and ways \ lof worsnip. as a sufficient ideal. Con- ! ! irregationaiism is rife amongst our own 1 Anglican parishes, blinding the vision |of one small section to the full view o: J . . the whole Church as the Body of Christ . , and sometimes setting up a distracting p l'"use'' of worship as the ideal, "What i '! we do at S s." I i Professor Rennie. the President of the ■ . Australasian Association for the ) j Advancement of Science, speaking in , | Perth, opposed the literal interpretation .I of Genesis, and then went on to assert ; | that as far as miracles were concerned ;. people were not able to judge, for the rea- . j sor that they did not know all Nature's f; laws. Professor Darnley, later on. a i admitted the wide gap which existed ,- i between the imaginary original human . I type —half-mar. half-ape—and the white - ■ men of to-day. and added, "none oi the c ! fossil remains suggested any continuity c, of developments from ape to man. Each •.'discovery brought new puzzles to the t j surface. The Missing Link wae still misse '■ - ' Additional proposals have recently s ; been made to the Bishop of London by c Mr. E. Page Gaston, F.R.G.S., of the n ' Museum Galleries. London, that the ninev S teen redundant city churches be pre- □ i sented to the British Colonies and c. America for removal and re-erection d abroad, if it is finally decided to disc ■ mantle them, and if no better suggestion '• ;s rorthcommg. It is estimated that c between five and six million would be v j raised by the Church of England from the = saie of the valuable building sites thus r released. Mr. Gaston adds that if his c i proposal is adopted these superb exame , pies of the architectural genius of Sir c ; Christopher Wren, the wood carvings of e _ I Grinling Gibbons, the stained glass and L | works from other old masters, would be preserved for posterity afar as specimens _' of the unrivalled sacred art which flourished in Great Britain in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, c c Preaching on "The Social Functions , _. of the Church." in England. Dr. R. F. c Horton said: "We have to recognise to our sorrow, that in this country to-day i there is a million and a-half people un--1 emp' lyod. r .ople who cannot get the w.-.rk ',v which they live, people who receive a dole which they hate, and if they do not hate it. it is destroying • ".non.. That is the Church's concern." II Later in his address. Dr. Horton said: '• "Take the troubles that arc before -us 5 to-day, the want of proper house "room, the unemployment, and this in- ■" | dustrial strife, this perpetual harassing '* | strife, between workers and those who -• I control the capital of the country, and o you complain of tha indifference shown c i towards these matters. Yes, you have a '= right to complain. What do most people t. care about it ? Their only interest in see- - r ing the paper is to read the betting news. P Their whole concern is to get wealth ' c and comfort for themselves. 1E Bishop Whitehead refers to what is .iappening in the diocese of Dornakal in order t > show w.iat the Church is doing _" for uutcastes. H- writes:—"We see a ~ strong Christian Ciiurch of 120.000 mem- '_ bers drawn almost exclusively from tiie outcastes. including at the rate of 12.00*> ~_ a year, with over 1000 primary schools. |j thirteen boarding schools, two high schools, and one college, educating in aii over 24.000 outcaste Christian pupils and staffed by over 1000 teachers, .ill - raised up from the outcastes. And this .ir_. progressive Church is ministered : i and _roverned by about eighty ordained ; riests and deacons, drawn from the out- _ :astes. parochial, district and diocesan _" councils, mainly composed of Indian members drawn from the same eom- _ munity. the whole presided over by an •> Indian bishop."