DR. CHARLES BROWN ON MONEY.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14668, 17 May 1913, Page 16

DR. CHARLES BROWN ON MONEY.

NOT THE PRIMARY THING IN

CHURCH LIFE

Ih\ Charles Brown, of Fermerpark, speaking at a meeting at Highburyquadrant Congregational Church, made some forcible and timely remarks on tho place of money in Church life. There seemed, ho said, to bo a danger of emphasising tho wrong things today, of putting in the first place things that were important, but not primary things. Somo people were in danger of putting evangelical orthodoxy in too prominent a place, and the same was the case with regard to organisation. It was not so- much the elaborate fishing-rod as the man at the end of the rod that counted. In the Christian Church, above all places, it was the personality that counted. It was not a machine, and it should be realised also that it was not an ethical or a theological society, but a spiritual society. He thought that t>ey in the Free Church, as well as the Established Church, were a little disposed in some places to over-emphasise the value of money in religious work. He had no patience with people who had money and withheld it from the service of their Church, but he did think that, when they lost people with means, when they all went away, those left behind were apt to think that the whole work was going to collapse, and there- was the danger of the Free Churches running away from neighbourhoods_ that were becoming poorer, and thinking that their work was done. He was not going to depreciate tho true value of money, but he could never forget that He who first gave to them the Christian faith was a penniless peasant, and had not where to lay His head. It -would be said that the Church, must rely upon wealth, but the first apostles had neither silver nor

gold,. and the Church of Christ was served in tho hour of its crisis, and was extended, by a man who worked with his hancs, to a power which shook tho heart oi tho old Roman Empire. Ho warned them to realise that a ntighbourhoou becoming poorer might uecome richer in enthusiasm and spiritual zeal. It was for tiiose things tuat xuey depended upon tiie presence and love of (JiaLst in the presence of His people. He was the real iniluence oi the Church, and with His inllueuce they might go out from tho Church highly sanctifyiug the whole neighbourhood.