CURRENT NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 15, 18 January 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

CURRENT NOTES.

The sixty-ninth annual report of the Auckland Sunday School. Union refers to the fact that Mr. Enoch Wood is the only survivor "of the small band of visionaries who in. 1865 decided to form this union when the city of "Auckland was barely out of its infancy." Mr. Wood has now' for over seventy years been a worker in Sunday schools. The Rev. Clement Dobson, M.A., preaching on "Horizons," in St. Peter's Church, Bristol, said: "To old age. the horizon at sunset makes a special appeal. It speaks no longer of worlds to conquer, but of the coming end. It seems to say to those whose race is nearly run, it is good if you have known God; ..there is a rest for God's people." . "Sacrifice is the law of the world," says the Rev. A. H. Collins, in the Taranaki "Daily News," "and if we fail to understand this we need not wonder if suffering makes us better. Business grows squalid if we regard it as the chance of making a bit instead of regarding it as a Divine calling. , Politics becomes a scramble between the 'ins' and /the 'outs,' and religion itself is [degraded into a celestial insurance unless we recognise that renunciation is the secret of renown. Well, God be praised, the world is not built, on selfishness." Preaching at Christ Churchy Clacton-on-Sea, on "Is There a Divine Purpose Behind Life?" the Rev., J. Allardyce said: "Creeds and doctrines are all right as terms of religion, but when they become tests as to whether a man has faith or not, then they have been exalted above, measure. Mere credal . tests are no guarantee whatever of a man's possession of the vital thing in religion. It is quite possible for a man to be doctrinely sound and yet be 'as unsound in spirit as a cracked bell or*an apple stung to the core by an insect.' That does not mean that creeds are useless. Both men and Churches must have their forms of belief. We must attempt to express in creed and doctrine our knowledge'and experience of God and spiritual verities." A definition of Congregationalism was recently given by Dr. Albert Peel, as follows: "Congregationalism is far more than the Congregational Union. It stands for the idea that where there is a group of people believing in Christ, gathered together for worship, fellowship and seiwice, there is the Church. Such a ■ group may be fo.und not merely in churches ordinarily called Congregational, but in any Church. The little groups of Christians won from the world 1 by the preaching of the missionary evangelist are Congregational churches in the true Apostolic succession. We wish this notion could be kept in the foreground at all times by all who bear the Congregational name; only thus can we expectj others to, realise that Congregationalism lias a conception of the Church that can never die." , - .. ,! An English vicar, the Rev. H. W. Blackburne, D.5.0., M.C., K.H.G., formerly an assistant chaplain general with Lord Home's army during _ the Great Wa- 1 , and seven times mentioned in despatches, has paid a fine tribute to Lord Home, who died last year., The following is an extract from ifc:-—"lt was my privilege to serve on the staff of Lord Horne all the time ha was <|in command of the First Army. We chaplains in France during the war; owed a great deal to our army commander. He not only took the keenest interest in our work, by backing it up and by constant encouragement, but he set a splendid example tp all. Every Sunday at army headquarters began, with a service of the Holy Communion, and on every occasion he was there himself Then, during the morning, except when prevented by the exigencies of war, he attended some parade service in the army area, always haying previously sent word that no one was to be present at the service just because he was to be there. At, the close of these services he spoke a few words himself, and they were words that his hearers could not readily forget. There was nothing fanatical about his religion; he was just a broadminded Christian 1 gentleman .who had clear convictions as to the. value of religion and its bearing on life." ,