MESSAGE FOR THE NEW YEAR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 305, 26 December 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

MESSAGE FOR THE NEW YEAR.

(By S.)

We have reached the last week of the year, and there will be many thoughts in our mind these closing days. If we are ripened and matured by age, one of them will be that, by and by, we shall have reached the last week of our life on earth. It may seem to' younger people a depressing thought, but it need not be that; it is an eventuality we all have to face, the youngest of us as well as the oldest, and, instead of the consideration of our latter end casting a gloom over us, it ehould help us to make sure that we are doing with our opportunities all that we can arid should be doing. Tides are coming and going in our affairs, and it is no more than common sense to make sure that we are taking advantage of them, and are not losing them, still lees stagnating in the shallows. Let us resolve to make that true of us in the coming year, and let us enter its shrouded and misty way bravely and hopefully, with confidence in Him to whom all power in heaven and on earth belongs. One of the wisest things Marcus Aurelius ever penned was that a man should make use of his reason and act in concert with God. We have a fine example of a man doing that in the case of David when he was compelled to flee from his son, to gather to-, gether an army, and draw* the sword in his defence. "I go," he said, "into the unknown future, but I go in the strength of the Lord God." That is the faith in which we should all go into the New Year, whose secrets are withheld from us. It will mean certain things on our part, as it meant certain things on his part. It will mean, for one thing, humbleness of mind. It has been said that humility is the first test of a great man, and St. Augustine used to insist that it is the first test of a Christian. Our Lord was humble, and one of His counsels to us is to show ourselves like Him in this respect. I remember once hearing a man spoken of as purse proud, and another man as vain, and I cannot recall ever hearing men of in accents of greater scorn. We certainly do not admire men who are purse proud or vain, but we have a genuine respect for modesty and humility, and, as Keble says, God has sworn to lift on high Who sinks himself by true humility. It will mean, for another thing, our trusting in God. David not only made full use of his experience and skill in the campaign on which he entered, he also put implicit trust in God as the chief factor in determining its issue. It is not wise to trust too much to our own understanding and to forget God in our use of ways and means. He can cross us as well as bless us. One other thing it will mean is that we shall quietly accept the inevitable in our experience, and quietly do our duty. We may have trying times before us, but let us not be afraid. Let us face the unexplored future with courage and hope, with David's motto for our motto, "I will go in the strength of the Lord God."

BOOK REVIEW.

A NEW CHURCH HISTORY.

"History," says the Rev. H. S. Marshall in "The Witness of the Church" (Skeffington and Son, London), "is the story of men and women and their reaction to the world in which they lived." He therefore sets out to tell the story of the Church from the earliest - times to the present day chiefly as it affected the lives of those who were brought in contact with it. He begins by showing that the Apostblic Church was a special fellowship, marked by a community of goods and the special religious ceremony known as the "Breaking of Bread." Popular with the people, it was regarded by the religious authorities with grave uneasiness. Then came the period Of development and organisation. During this period opposition came from the Jews and from Rome. The unity of the Roman Empire depended upon the worship of the EmperOr, and as this was impossible for Christians, there came a period of "fierce persecution. The story of the persecutions is briefly told, and then under Constantine Christianity became the favoured religion of the Empire. Mr. Marshall now goes on to show that "instead of the Church capturing the world, the world captured the Church." After a brief sketch of the various heresies, he passes to the story of the English Church and the long Btruggle between Church and State. When Mr. Marshall comes to the story of the Reformation he tries to separate the political side from the theological. To Henry VIII. he assigns the political side; to the new learning the theological. He quotes Hackett to the effect that Henry VIII. juggled with the doctrines of the Church as a modern party manager would juggle with the tariff in the Budget. He also speaks of "the two more or less legitimate children, Queen Elizabeth and the Church of England." He speaks of " the sickly sycophancy of Crannier," but adniits that he wrote most beautiful English. After mentioning that 280 persons were burned at the stake in the reign, of Mary, Mr. Marshall says: "But the Tudor clement in Mary had to express itself, possibly in revenge for past indignities and sufferings, possibly out of a pure joie de vivre!" Surely this is hardly the right expression to apply to such a holocaust. Ha further assures us that Mary was a pious lady of charitable disposition. In dealing with the Church in the eighteenth century Mr. Marshall quotes largely from Parson Woodeforde's diary to show the lethargy ' that had crept over the Church. Yet there still remained much spiritual life, for this was the century which produced William Law and John Wesley. The book concludes with a tribute to the Oxford Movement, which, says Mr. Marshall, "saved the Church of England from death." As an outline of Church history this book has much to recommend it, in spite of many curious omissions. The t)6natist schism, for instance, is dismissed in a sentence, and Cyprian in a line. But it is eminently readable, and an excellent bibliography at the end will enable the student of Church history to follow up the study of any period and to check for himself the opinions expressed by the author.