AUCKLAND SERMONS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 296, 14 December 1936, Page 3

AUCKLAND SERMONS.

SPREAD OF PAGANISM. EXAMPLE OF KING. That the issue determined by the abdication of King Edward VIII. was really 0110 between Christianity and Paganism was maintained by Dr. J. J. North in a sermon at the Grange Road Baptist C'hurcli yesterday. ✓ British tradition, he declared, was Christian. The British flag was the Cross, but Christianity had been slipping out of national life, and the Cross had become an ornament rather than a principle of action. "llie Royal tragedy last week precipitated the conflict on this great issue," said Dr. North. "Had the paganising of society gone as far- as many suspected, we might have been listening to the death knell of the Empire. Had the late King married this woman, whose two previous husbands are alive, and married lier, as he would have been compelled to do, without religious ceremony, but with the consent of the Parliaments of the Empire, the last scruples would have been erased. The King's example would have prevailed. Paganism would have been victorious. That there was a real peril of this, when the King's charm and popularity are remembered, none can doubt. The King seemed to think that it might be done. "It was therefore an historic moment in the history of the British people when Paganism, which holds sex relationships cheap, and submits them to the whim of the moment, to the ignoring of higher obligations, was denied a place 011 the ancient Throne of this Empire." In a sermon at St. Paul's Methodist Church, Remuera, the Rev. \V. Walker said that though the abdication of King Edward VIII. had filled all hearts with sorrow, there were some features that gave cause for rejoicing, in that every part of the Empire and practically all classes of people, had expressed strong aversion to a morganatic marriage, and had shown- that the women whom the King proposed to marry would not be acceptable as their Queen. i