SERVICES IN THE CHURCHES

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21975, 26 December 1936, Page 12

SERVICES IN THE CHURCHES

TRAGIC CONDITION OF THE WORLD SERMON BY BISHOP WESTWATSON The tragic condition of the world to-day should fill the Christian Church with assurance, declared the Bishop of Christchurch, the Rt. Rev. Campbell West-Watson, at the Choral Eucharist service held in the Cathedral yesterday morning. The wisdom of men had proved insufficient, said the bishop. It was a confession of failure. The world was full of time-servers like King Ahaz of old who, instead of finding his strength in God, sought an alliance with the Assyrians. Security was the ideal of Ahaz and it was the modern ideal. The security achieved by selfish alliances might lead to dangerous entanglement. The present peace was a false peace, being really a preparation for war. Jealousy, envy, and strife were on every hand. It was a pathetic thing that the League of Nations had suffered such a rebuff, but it was not the time to give up hope. The league was founded as an act of faith—tne faith that deep in men’s hearts there were feelings of justice and fairness. The league was not lest—men would have to come back to it again. The only foundation for peace was the peace that dwelt in the heart, the feeling of goodwill toward men. The Christian church should take up the mantle of Isaiah and load the world to acknowledge the true King, the Wonderful Counsellor, the Divine Hero, the Everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace. CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL CHRISTMAS SERVICES Pontifical High Mass was not celebrated at midnight on Christmas Ev* as usual, at the Catholic Cathedral, low mass being held in its place. Bishop Brodie was the celebrant and gave the papal blessing. The bishop addressed the worshippers, who were present in even greater numbers than last year. Christmas greetings were extended to pH associated with the work of the Cathedral and parish to all the parishioners, to all those of other faiths who were present and to all the citizens of Christchurch. The bishop’s prayer was that they might enjoy the peace brought by the Child Christ on the first Christmas morning, and that they might be brought nearer to the ideals of Him Whose coming they wore celebrating. The bishop preached a Christmas sermon in the evening and again there was a big congregation of worshippers. THE GOSPEL AND COMMON PEOPLE SERVICE AT ST. PAUL’S “The Christmas picture is imprinted on the mind of mankind for ever,” said the Rev. A. C. Watson, at St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church yesterday morning, when a Christmas service was held. There was a good attendance and Christmas hymns were sung. “Prominent in this picture,” he said, “are the figures of shepherd and child. At first sight the shepherds seem a strange Choice for the proclamation of a divine message. We might have supposed that it would be heard within the church, where men were accustomed to listening to God. But it was given to ordinary working men engaged in their daily work. The Gospel was first preached to common people and remains a rebuke to all forms of pride. “The second figure, the child, was declared to be a sign of the new order of being that had come into the world. A new kind of entrance is forever Proclaimed in the Babe of Bethlehem, t is not necessarily to the learned or the cultured, but to the childlike and sincere that entrance is given to the kingdom of knowledge, of love, of Heaveh.” THE ETERNAL SON SERMON BY REV. CLARENCE EATON / A Christmas service was held in the Durham Street Methodist Church yesterday morning at 10 o’clock. Mr Robert Thomas played the organ, and the Rev. Clarence Eaton conducted the service. He 'read two passages, one from the Old Testament and one from the New —"Unto us a child is born” and “Before Abraham was I am.” Mr Eaton emphasised that the greatest birth of the centuries occuSled only a secondary place in the few Testament because the birth of Christ Was viewed not as a starting place, but as a stage on His journey from Eternity to time. The one thing the New Testament writers never did was to date the career of Jesus from His birth. In that they agreed with Our Lord Himself in Whose consciousness and speech was the note of eternity. Unless we viewed the Incarnation, as the earthly life of the Eternal Son, said Mr Eaton, the giving of the Father was robbed of reality, the selfemptying of Christ had no meaning, and the essential nobility and dignity of human nature no vindication. In an enlarging universe that dwarfed and belittled man the only doctrine that redeemed him from insignificance was the doctrine of the Incarnation—Christ the Eternal Son taking on Him not the nature of angels but the seed of Abraham. SALVATION ARMY CITADEL Captain W. J. Thompson conducted the Christmas service at the Salvation Arftiy Citadel last evening, and took as the text for his address Luke 2, 15, “Let us come now even unto Bethlehem.” The music consisted of carols, and a duet was given by Mr and Mrs Ern Smith and a solo by Captain Thompson.