CHURCH AND WIRELESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 40, 16 February 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

CHURCH AND WIRELESS.

A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT

Tn the "Yorkshire Observer," Dr. Sidney Berry gives an interesting description of the Cenotaph sefvlee which was broadcast on Armistice Day. He writes: "I was a member of a congregation which listened to the service broadcast from the Cenotaph. It was a strange •nd moving experience. Every member of the congregation felt that he was sharing in a great national act of commemoration. "We were in a church a hundred miles •way from Whitehall, but it almost seemed as if we formed part of the immense crowd who gathered reverently to keep a great memory. When the {irayers were read, the whole congregalon instinctively bowed the head. "At the sound of the National Anthem everyone rose to his feet, but most impressive of all was the twominute silence. There was something Impelling and thrilling when Big Ben boomed out the hour. All sense of distance vanished, space was annihilated, and we felt that we formed part of a great multitude and shared the heart-clutching emotions of the intense quietness.

"The only intrusive noise which jarred upon the nerves was the rapped out orders of the sergeant-majors. If the broadcast of the Cenotaph service is to become one of the normal features of the Armistice celebrations, some way must be found of subordinating the military element, at least to the extent of giving orders by signs rather than by the most unmusical voices which the wireless has ever carried across the ether.

"I confess that when the plan was first suggested of setting up wireless receivers in churtrhes, I was more than doubtful as to the efficacy of the plan. I thought that the impression would be given of listening-in to what others were doing rather than sharing in the spirit of a great celebration.

"Those of us who listened-in in rhurches wore more than listeners —we were participants. It wu entirely different from listening-in at home. The presence of a large congregation of people gav* the sease of a real community of Spirit and purpose. The barriers of r'iace were overpassed. "The experience wae so successful that it can hardly remain an isolated one. Its striking success will certainly call for repetition at other great national fostivals. There is, in wireless, a medium hy which national unity can lie fostered and developed at all times when the instinct of people is to get together and 1o ( share the spirit of a great occasion. "But the experiment from the point ot view of the Churches has even larger les&ons. Common worship and the InS,°' «"at words often lose their uSST ÜBC of the 6ense of is °- mattered companies In h ™»n «mwad«& Uc S- with the wWer separate, uoffi P W; h ? y are « hut inof the great oSortanw' 89 *. flord * °™ down that urfc« ?i tw * ° f breaking between tne • «»*

''What a great thing it would be. from the point of view of religion, if the people who gathered in churches and chapels could share more often in the sense of a worship widely shared. It would provide the wider touch and the larger view that religion so sorely needs. It would ato do more for the cause of Christian unity than all the negotiations for a formal union between different denominations. It would join hearts together, which is always a greater thing than the fusion of organisations.

"1 look forward to the day when a receiving apparatus will l>e the possession of all churches as part of their necessary equipment. It is one of the means, provided by modern invention, by which the Church may be rescued from petty parochialism and saved from the discouragement which is caused by isolation."'