PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18202, 13 October 1924, Page 11

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.

I DIAMOND JUBILEE OF j CANTERBURY. SPECIAL CHURCH SERVICES, Special sen ices, in commemoration of tho Diamond Jubilee of the Presbyterian Cburr.h in Canterbury, were h°ld at moet of tbc churches of that denomination yesterday. KNOX CHLRCH. The special jubilee services were continued at Knox Church last evening, when the Rev. W. Scorgie, of Dunedin, preached from the text, Matthew, chapter 27, verse 42: i 'He saved others, Himself He cannot save." After explaining the theological aspect of the text, Mr Seorgie went on to deal with tbo spirit of self-sacrifice which was manifest in the 'world to-day. Ail nature rested on the basis of selfsacrifice, lie stated, from the lowest to the highest. In Mature self-sacrifice was selfish, savage and instinctive, but m tbe lifo of man it was moral and heroic. As the social scale rose, so selfishness passed away and to-day ai! tha men and women who worked in order that others might live in peace and comfort were exercising a form of self-sacrifice. There was another instance which he wished to quote —that of our men who had fcugbt during the war, living in squalor and discomfort and facing death in order that others might be protected and saved. Had these men shirked their duty they would have been despised, but because they had faced privation and death cheerfully, heroically, we were proud of them. Referring to the past of tho Presbyterian Church in Canterbury, Mr Scorgio stated that ail the beauty and wealth of our province we owed to tho sclf-sacrifico of the pioneers. To them we owed our present comfort and peace, and we should do ail wa could to be worthy of-the things they had dono for us; but this was not. t.ho case. The self-3a/-,rifico of the pioneers had laid the foundation of all we had to-day, and we should follow their example, but wo did not do-it. We should emulate the pioneers' spirit of self-sacrificp to hand on an unsullied heritagp to 'our ' children. ST. PAUL'S. | I At St. Paul's, C'ashel street, yesterday, the Moderator of the Presbytery, the Rev. W. Tanner, conducted tho morning service. In an address to Ihe boys and girls of the congregation, he said that was a day to think of those who had laboured and died in the service of tho Church. He urged them to catch the spirit of Jesus, and to hclo to mako the future record of the. Church. For his sermon he took for his text Matthew 16, 18, "My.Church." Ho eiid it would be better for most people if they took a deep pride in their Church, and what it stood for. Like others, he placed a strong emphasis on Christianity, but he also emphasised strong Churchmanship. There was a need for a spirit of Churchmanship. When people were lukewarm in their attachment to the Chureh they were losing the significance of holy fellowship. The history of the Christian Church was the history of tho world'si progress. It was said to bo reactionary, or conservative, or aloof, but it had been, by tho Reformation and the Renaissance, a great moulding influence. • In articles that . had been, written on. the jubilee, the democratic nature of the Presbyterian Church lad: been stressed. Al 1 through the. yeajs it had preached the.doctripe of Christ, that what counted was not the accident of bjrth or -wealth, but the power of the soul to be filled by the. love of God. Sometimes he was afraid of the people who glpried in the paßt and in the things accomplished by others, but who were not prepared to throw themselves into the work. Tho anthems "Lift Up Your Heads" and "Hark, Hark, My Soul" were sung by the choir, Misses Lowe and Rule being the soloists. In the evening the Rev. W. Gray Dixon preached, taking . for his text Leviticus 6-13, ".'The fire shall ever be burning on the altar; it shall never go out." For 61 years, ho said, the Church system, which had come down from their fathers, from. John Calvin, and from, the Apostles, had been prevalent in the province, and the Diamond Jubilee of the Presbytery of Christchurch' was being commemorated. It was a day of special consecration, when the retrospect wou>? clear the eyes to view the present, a day when the people should remember the intention of the text, and do* their utmost to keep the fire burning. The . past held the key to the present and they should seek the ennobling influence of the pa6t,. Fire suggested the stake, and no Church in modern times had had so many martyrs as the Presbyterian. The jubilee meant far more than the man in the street, or even the ordinary man in church felt: it meant that they had snatched from the ashes of their sires some portion of the former fires. Every preacher should have a reflection of the martyr's fire on "his face, not the fire that destroyed the martyr's body, but the fire that inspired his heart. -In the jubilee was a magnificent diamond, the diamond of the angelic or true apostolic succession, and it was a beacon to the people t.o dare, endure, suffer, and,, if need be, die for the | faith. The deviation to the Presby- j terian Church was no sectarian fanaticism, for it only accentuated the devo- j tion of the people to the universal or Catholic Church. He said there was one thing more impressive than the consecrated, undying flame that burnt in some churches, and that- was tho consecrated- Christian afire with God. Without constant- meditation and prayer, God's fire flickered, and some people seemed to care for their means to grace in "tit-bits and snapshots." But they "must come,'service bv service, to take in God's great thought. There was nothing wor?e or more nauseating than Presbyterianism gone stale, Presbyterianism with the'fire out. Concluding, he said there was all honour to the Canterbury pilgrims and their faith, which, speaking reverently, he would say Lad not the virility of Presbyterianism. It came as a tonic to the young community, and put iron in the blood. _ The anthem " Like -as the Hart Dc. mreththe Water Brooks" was sung byMr G. M. Fawcett. i ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH. At St. Andrew's Church in the morning the service was conductj ed by the Rt. Rev. Dr. Cumming, Modj erator of the Presbyterian Assembly of New Zealand. The service was assisted by an augmented choir, which at the morning service rendered the anthem 'Te Deuin." Dr. Crooke was at the organ. In brief address to the children, Dr. Cumming pointed out how prone all were to press forward when there was something pleasant in prospect, and how prone to hold back when unpleasant tasks had to be done. Yet there were people always wanting to bo first to do certain things—in explora-*-ion, aviation, and so . on. It was

the fuKV* thirg t'cfy •o-jlr) have in an rn^wr rjj3ijna or community that if included ~tho?e who were prepared to go forward and take the lead, wore prepared to pioneer. He liked to see such tiiir.z? amonz boy? and girl?. The subject of the sermon, was "Th* Tt.iv? of Oid. I'l". Cumming said thr,f 1 «rar] was enjoined to remember it* lowiv origin. and also the ways the Lord had led them. Outstanding events ■vrrTc to he recalled. Some twelve time s the call was made to remember. Ir. was a good thing to remember the days |of old. The retrospect would make them grateful and hopeful. As the vears passed and the road stretched further and further back memory had a wider sphere, and had more reason for gratified humility. There were certain special occasions of which people took special note, some event which had made a big impress on their memories or helped to mould their characters. It led to" the thought that the Lord had none much for them. The jubilee of the Presbytery gave cause for much thankfulness. ' He was able to cast back that morning over six decades. The earlv history of Canterbury wa s pra.f-.ti-callv the history of St. Andrew's Church. The celebrations meant more perhaps to St. Andrew's, the mother church, than to the others, which were more or less the direct off-shoots from it. The one had become many. There were now four Presbyteries in the area that originally comprised the Presbvterv of Canterbury. One single congregation had represented Presbyterianism in Canterbury, but now there was a total of sixty-two or sixty-three centres of Christian activity. The booklet prepared in connexion with the jubilee celebration told of tbo first stages of Presbyterianism in Canterbury, which, dated from a later date than was the case in other centres. The earliest- settlers in Canterbury were not English; they were Scotch. The members of St. Andrew's Church did. not need to be told the name of the men who came from' Wellington and first- settled in IJiccarton. Tho first Presbyterian community had been established ten years before a Presbyterian minister'was able to visit them. The efforts of the Presbyteriaus to obtain visibility in Canterbury started, in ISS-1, ten years before the establishment of the Presbytery whose jubilee they were now celebra.ting. It was not till two years later—in. April, 1836 —that the first minister arrived, the Rev. Charles Frazer. -A. .year later St. Andrew's Church was opened. It had' been altered and largely rebuilt since that date, -but it st.il] remained the centre-of Presbyierianism in Canterbury. He sketched in some detail the history of the Presbyterian Church in the subsequent years, and recalled tho salient events associated with its growth. The present Presbytery of Christcbnrch was larger than the Presbytery of.-Canterbury ever was. The subject for t)r. Cummins's address at the evening sen-ice, was "Old Things Pass Awav." Things were always: passing away, he said. In some respects'this might' be something for regret, and lead to much moralising about the mutability 'of mundane thing?. Tho nkle.r generation, the pioneers, had lived their lives and j passed • away, leaving honoured mem- j ories and traditions behind them. A new and younger generation had come to carry on the work they had begun, and when the time came they wculd lay down the ta-sk for others to carry on. Time had wrought gr--at changes Zealand,, which, to-day had become the white man's country iostead of'the distant country of a coloured cannibal race. It. was hard to say how much our land owed to the men who had brought to it the Christianising influence that had turned the cannibals into Christians. There, was a, great need to-day for practical Christianity—it was what the world was • crying out for. While they should do all honour to the past, they should not neglect to follow the gleam.. Tho anthems were: "Blessed be the God and Fa'ther;" and "Hallelujah Chorus." ST. DAVID'S, SYDENHAM. The services at St. David's, morning and evening, yesterday, were in accord with the Diamond Jubilee celebrations being observed throughout the Christchurch Presbytery. (Wing to sickness, old-time preachers, who were to hare occupied the pulpit, were unable to do so. The minister, the Rev. J..D. Webster, - a native of t.he city,-and licensed to the ministry by the Christchurch Presbytery, occupied the pulpit .at both services. At the morning service, to a fine congregation, thp preacher sketched in interesting fashion the growth of Presbyterianism in our province, from' a, date prior to the arrival of tho Pilgrim ships" down to the present time, and in so doing he showed how abundantly God had blessed the work of the Church, and how much wo' of the present day owed to these early pioneers and their successors. In the evening there was added to the note of thanksgiving sounded in the morning, the call to maintain, carry on, and extend the work so firmly founded by 1 those who had gone before. The. hymns and the anthems by the choir were in accord with the general theme of tho sermons. RICCARTON CHURCH. At. the Riccarton Presbyterian Church yesterday-morning the Rev. X. L. D. Webster preached from the text: "Others have laboured and ye have entered into their labour." When they thought, he said, of the pioneers who had eut the paths through the trackless forests, had cleared the land and sowed the wheat, had established ma.nufnetnres and built tho schools and churches, surely they conld not pass th" churchvards without, feeling that there were heroes slumbering there. It was one very honourable characteristic of'humankind that tho man wculd labour and sacrifice for the benefit of other men and women yet unborn.