QUESTIONS IN CHURCH.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17813, 12 July 1923, Page 2

QUESTIONS IN CHURCH.

INNOVATION IN SYDNEY. (iBOK OTO OWK COBRBSFOITBBffT.) SYDNEY, July 4. For many people church makes no appeal. 1 They cannot feel joy in religion as they find it in church. The sermons are often long and monotonous, and the road to the kingdom of heaven, thorny enough ordinarily, is made harder by the labyrinths of creeds and theology in which they find themselves enmeshed. That there is an indifference to the ordinary church service on the part of many people is recognised in a practical way by at least one clergyman in Sydney—the Rev. Mearns Massie, the services at whose Congregational Church in the populous suburb of Newtown have been made brightly attractive by the introduction of a "Question Box" on the last Sunday in each month. Questions on which tion may 'be sought are placed in tljp box, and they are read out and ed from the pulpit during the servicr* The questions cover an extraordiip.* 1 range. The clergyman would wisdom of Solomon to answer them Jml but he does his best. "Do you thijill' it just that children should be punisiedf for the sins of their parents?" was one of the questions presented at the latest service. Here was another question: "Can a person achieve success by saying, 'Success is mine!' " "Not if he lies on his back and says it," was the minister's retort-; "he must work." That was straight and to the point. He was asked also to solve this little domestic problem: "Who should carry the household purse?"« The answer was worthy of a diplomatist, for Mr Massie, of course, includes both sexes in his congregation. "The ,one who knows best how to use it," was his neat reply. Among a score of other questions was this one: "Why is a religious m£n so often distrusted in business?" "Because often he talks religion but does not practise it," was the reply. "The man who puts his religion off with his Sunday Buit is not religious."