EVENING SERVICE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 244, 8 July 1908, Page 8

EVENING SERVICE.

THE PAST AND FUTURE OF THE CHURCH.

In the evening a large congregation assembled at St. Paul's pro-Cathedral, wh'en the Rev. V. A. .Kitcat, _of Eketahuna, preached the sermon, taking for his subject,- " The Christian Church." The service was sung by the Rev. A. W. H. Compton, of Mangatainoka, and a full choir, with Mr. Robert Parker at the organ, gave an effective rendering of the anthem "-Prai'so the Lord, 0 Jerusalem," from Psalm cxlvii (Hayes).. The Rev. Mr. Kitcat . based his discourse on the words " He is the, Head of the Body, the Church," from Colossians .-I, 18, and dealt with the Church's existence-in the past, the faith which constituted, its life; and the spirit in which the present <and future should be faced. He referred to the evolutionary 'forces which the " Church had passed through since the decline and fall of the Roman : Empire, and the ■ gradualsettling down into the civilisation of : the present/ In this process of evolution the influence of the, Church had made itself felt in every phaso of the life of the individual and of' tho nation—of the world.' _This influence ho would term, from its union, with the Almighty, a supernatural • force, and' while the Church was not jealous of those natural forces which had contributed to thedestiny of the civilised world, it was not oblivious of its own. There was-an inevitable; intermingling of., natural aiid supernatural' forces, and these were precisely';what' one, would expect' to be revealed in an investigation of a Christian .civilisation. In its work for the future the Church looked to tho: spirit'of * selfisacrifice in its -members. 'Th6y> should avoid that foolish optimism .which' refused to look the fact's of life,in, the face,and lightlv cast aside its r severities; the selfish" spirit of pessimism was. equally to bo avoided.