CURRENT NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 89, 16 April 1927, Page 22

CURRENT NOTES.

The jubilee of Gipsy Smith as a preacher falls in next June and arrangements are being made for its celebration by special missions in England. The Roman Catholic Church in Norway numbers 2700 members, with 19 churches, and 32 priests. There are six hospital under the care of Catholic nuns. Dr. W. R. Inge, Dean of St. Paul's, is to be one of the speakers at the Primitive Methodist Conference, next June, in Leicester, at the meetings on public questions. . The Rev. T. Nevin Williams, a wellknown Calvinistic Methodist Minister in South Wales, opened a Labour demonstration at Pwllheli, with prayer in which the audience joined. I The Rev. Alexander Hough, formerly an L.M.S. missionary in Samoa, has been inducted to the pastorate of Moldgreen Church, Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England.

The Primitive Methodist Church on the Sandringham estate has been renovated at the cost of the King. Last year the church of West 'Newton, also on the Sandringham estate, was renovated at the King's expense.

"Why We Are Free Churchmen ?' was the subject of an address by Principal A. R. Henderson, M.A., D.D.. He «aid the "Churchman" was more important than the "free." He added: "We would rather be 'churchmen' that are not free, than free because we are outside ali churches."

The Rev. G. A. Studdart-Kennedy, in a midday address at Liverpool, said: "If a man says he has never had any doubts, I do not think he has ever had any faith worth talking about. You may say I have got no great passion, that the world should be good and beautiful, and true, but I live a decent life. Then you are a parasite, sucking the goodness of the saints. Your soul is the soul of a flea. It sucks other people's blood."

"We have allowed our churches to become careless, slovenly, vulgar," said Rev. H. Bulcock, in his address from the chair of the Liverpool Congregational Council, "without any suggestion of that other-worldliness which man needs to help him to take his proper part in this world. The drift of many of our people to Anglicanism need not be imputed to mean and snobbish motives. The fact is that Anglicanism has wisely preserved many of the arts of worship about which we have been careless."

A frank statement was made by the Rev. John Bevari, M.A., in answer to a question in the "Christian World":—

"Our type of religion, particularly as represented by our sermons, is far too brainy; it challenges thought, but fails to foster the comforting spirit of a devotion that is warm, personal and in timate. After all, the religion that comforts a man and does not leave him cold when his heart is broken is the one we all need, for we shall pass that wav sooner or later."

Six Polish evangelical churches in Poland have united, namely the Polish Lutheran, German United. Evangelical Church of Augsberg, Helvetic Confessions in Galicia and Evangelical United Church of Silcsi and the two Reformed churches. These have formed a Federal Council to remove the tension between the different Polish churches, which were so strongly separated hitherto by national and confessional antagonism. j Apart from this important object, the . Federal Council's aim will be to further the work of Protestantism in Poland.

Principal Selbie, in a sermon at Mansfield College on "Religion and Science," pleaded for a closer rapprochement between teachers of religion and men of science, and suggested that it would indeed be good if all students of religion started with a thorough-wing course of scientific studv, and thfreby acquired more of the genuine scientific r « 4i ?! m i° d he Warded as more distinctly Christian in its attitude than wag often admitted by religious teachers The scientist was inflnitelv patient, persevering, humble in face of Mature, possessed by an ardent love of I truth. To-day science admitted that matter could not be separated from spirit, and that mind was prior to matter. He quoted five conclusions recently put forward by Professor Julian Huxley, showing how a foremost leader of scientific thought admitted the necessity of the being of God aatj Hja mtak A atsswJ gadfc^