ATTENDANCE AT CHURCH

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26887, 13 November 1952, Page 6

ATTENDANCE AT CHURCH

VALUE OF PARENTS’ EXAMPLE

ADDRESS BY ARCHDEACON G. M. MCKENZIE

“Next time you get together with your friends and deplore the low moral standards of society, ask yourselves to what extent your own poor attendance at public worship has been a contributing factor,” said the Ven. Archdeacon G. M. McKenzie (Wellington) when speaking to parents at the opening service of the memorial hall and sanctuary at the Cathedral Grammar School yesterday. When public worship was neglected it was not long before morality disappeared, he said. “If your son, a pupil at this school, is unwilling to go to church on Sundays do not be too eager to condemn the school. You, fathers, would do well to remember that boys are hero-worship-pers, and they usually worship their fathers, Your influence on them is profound.” Man never made a greater mistake than when he said that worship was an optional extra, said Archdeacon McKenzie. He was essentially a worshipping animal; his choice was not between worshipping and failing to worship, but between worshipping God in Heaven or another ideal. In the freedom of choice the danger lay, for man unconsciously imitated his object of worship. Communists behaved as the v did because they believed in a cold, callous and impersonal theory. “I am glad that boys will assemble each day in this memorial chapel to worship God, but the ip themselves will not be sufficient. Let this opening service be a challenge to you, fathers and mothers, to reinforce your example by taking your boys, Sunday by Sunday, to your parish church,” Archdeacon McKenzie said. Archdeacon McKenzie was on the staff of the school for some years and headmaster from 1935 to 1936. The opening service, for parents and their sons, was conducted by the Bishop of Christchurch (the Rt. Rev. A. K. Warren), and the lesson was read by the Rev. Canon Stephen Parr, a former headmaster of the school.