PULPIT VOICES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 280, 26 November 1928, Page 8

PULPIT VOICES.

MODERATOR AS PREACHER. A MYSTIC WITH POWER. FATHERS AND THEIR SONS.

(By A.A.8.)

The church was comfortably full. It was in one of the outer suburbs and the Moderator of the General Assembly was preaching. Professor Hewitson borrowed his theme from the third Evangelist, but even more from one who for his day could tell a story almost as well as St. Luke, the immortal tinker of Bedford.

The challenge was: Should a father, himself on the Christian pilgrimage, speak to his four boys concerning the high and deep things of life? There could be but one answer, only the father might have to learn how to talk. He was advised to go to football or cricket matches, to find the proper atmosphere and to use the proper parlance for his boys, talking in accents not of an quired, but of a natural tongue. When 1 was the time to speak? It could not be too soon. The Moderator was nothing if not unconventional. Again and again a ripple of suppressed amusement passed over the faces of his listeners, but it was in the rustling of the early morning breeze in the leaves of the trees, never fa? away from the feeling of tears; and with many humorous asides, dignity was never for a moment in danger. His illustrations were frequent. Hβ told of the boy who at eight years of age asked permission to take Communion. The preacher's description of the perplexity of the church authorities was amusing. They happily admitted him for the boy's simple profession of love for the Master. The boy became one of tie world's most famous missionaries. The Moderator did not fail to emphasise the fact that to accept the Atonement did not necessarily mean to fully understand it. The speaker made little of denominationalism. Baptists, Congregationalists, Roman Catholics were all in the Christian category as Presbyterians. He stigmatised as a coward the man who apologised for his failure to instruct and lead his boys concerning the Christian

life, because of the indifference of hit wife. Women were. as much to blame as men in such matters. In the fint recorded transgression, woman wat there. Professor Hewitson stoutly declared for the paramount influence of mothers with boys. Very telling was his plea against allowing any young lad to depart from his Christian home without instruction as to the facts which both by Nature ana the Almighty had been written on his body. A Latin poet has told us that the art of all arts is to conceal art. The moderator had no style, save that being perfectly at ease himself, he soon set all in the same happy mood, and then got at mind, heart and conscience. The assembly revealed the man with uiyetic tendency. Preaching brought it to the fore. I asked a fellow-hearer of few words wherein lay his power. He said: "Sincerity." Many pulpits in the Presbvteriam Churches in and around Auckland were occupied at all services yesterday by ministers who are attending the General Assembly now sitting in the city.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH, "Soul and Body" was the subject of the lesson - sermon in the Christian Science Church yesterday, the Golden text being taken from Philippiane 3; 20, 22: "Our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto Himself." 5 Among the citations which comprised the lesson-sermon was the following from the Bible: "And Joshua said unto the people, Ye are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen you the Lord, to serve him. And they said, We a*© witnesses. Now, therefore put away, said he, the. strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the Lord God of Israel. And the people said unto Joshua, The Lord our God will we serve, and his voice will w» obey. (Joshua xxiv., 22-24). The. lesson-sermon also included thi following passage from the Christia* Science textbook, "Science and Healtl with Key to the Scriptures," bv Mary Baker Eddy: "The only excuse for entertaining human opinions and rejecting the Science of being is our mortal ignorance of Spirit—ignorance which yields only to the understanding of divine Science, the understanding by which we enter int* the kingdom of Truth on iearth and learn that Spirit is infinite land. supreme." . (;p. S80)£