CAMPAIGN WEEK ENDS.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20921, 31 July 1933, Page 16

CAMPAIGN WEEK ENDS.

—» — STUDENT CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT. AN ADDRESS ON PERSONAL RELIGION. The campaign week organised by the Canterbury College Student Christian Movement ended yesterday. In the afternoon a r tea was held in the Students' Union building, after which the Rev. D. Gardner Miller gave an address on "Personal Religion." At St. Paul's Church in the evening a special service was conducted by the Rev. Alan C. Watson and students. Mr Watson preached on "World Chaos and its Challenge to Christianity." This was followed by a final meeting conducted by Mr Lex Miller in the Students' Union building. On Saturday evening a meeting was held in the Student Christian Movement room. Mr Max Robinson was chairman, and Mr Lex Miller spoke on "The Place of Authority. - ' "The more closely and honestly I examine myself," said Mr Gardner Miller, in speaking on personal religion, "the less it seems to me that denomination matters. I feel that I am not a minister of any one church, but simply a Christian. Denomination implies certain intellectual aspects, but those after all do not matter very much." The first feeling of one whom the Cross touched was likely to be one of shame; "in the presence of purity, one wishes one was not quite so naked." Then came the passionate desire to convey to others the message of the Cross; as the Methodists put it, then was a "concern" to tell others about Christ. That was the real test of religion. It did not matter how much intellect or learning a person had; if he had not the desire to spread the Gospel to others, he had better look to his religion. Therein was the essence of personal religion.

WORLD CHAOS AND CHRISTIANITY.

SERMON BY REV. A. C. WATSON,

A special service was held last night at St. Paul's Presbyterian Church, connected with the campaign week held by the Student Christian Movement at Canterbury College. The minister, the Rev. Alan C. Watson, was assisted in the service by Mr Max Robinson, president of the Canterbury College Student Christian Movement, and by Mr Lex Miller, a theological student of Knox College, Dunedin, and one of the speakers at the meetings held during the last week. Mr Watson took for his sermon the subject, "World Chaos and its Challenge to Christianity." The subject, he said, would be an overwhelming one and one - that it was perhaps presumption to approach. A minister could approach it only because he did so, not in his own strength, but as the preacher of God's word. There was an answer to the questions that faced us today; that answer was the same now as it had always been; it was "God." For the first part of his subject he took his text from the Old TestamentjJ'And God said, 'Let there be there was light."; In the past men had been moved by perplexing problems; and had found the solution in God. To-day the world was in chaos; and the solution was still the same. Christianity offered no formula for creating material wealth; it was not interested in creating material wealth. But Christianity pointed the way to real happiness. For the second part of his subject he took the New Testament text: "God spoke, and the Word was made flesh." Christ, the incarnation of God's Word, who had worked as a carpenter for 30 years, had taught us to make the best of our circumstances. He had shown that our lives were not to be governed by rules. Christianity did npt work according to a fixed schedule; no one could predict its course. That was one of the glories of Christianity —no one could tell what it was going to do next. We in our lives could, if we wished, choose to live the comfortable, certain life, governed by detailed regulations; but the Christian life was the life of uncertainty: We could not tell, it was perhaps even presumption to ask, where Christianity would lead us to; but it would lead us, if we \?ould be willing to follow on.