THE CHURCHES.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 806, 2 May 1910, Page 8

THE CHURCHES.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES. SERMON BY DR. GIBB. At St. John- 1 a Church last evening Dr. Gibb continued his course of sermons on "The Signs of tho Times." The text 'was Ecclesiastes n, 10-11: "Whatsoever mine eyes desired 1 kept not from them. I withheld not my heart from any joy . . and behold all was vanity and venation of spirit." The theme was the satiety and disgust with the world and life in which all who denied the reality of sin, and substituted for the worship of God the worship of humanity found themselves at last involved. They came at last to face'a played-out world. The preacher said that for the sake of deeper impression he would like in tho first place to trace the process of which this satiety was the climax. He called their attention first to the spiritual losses incurred in the abandonment of the conviction that sin is guilt and 1 lawlessness, and in the substitution of the

worship of man for the worship of God. Dismiss sin irto the region of bogeydom and the passion for holiness is withered up. The cry, "Creatfe in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me," could rise only in the heart that had first cried "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned." W | ith the disappearance of God there also disappeared all those high allegiances, constraining motives, and mighty inspirations, which lift a man out of himself, give him something to live for, and turn e drab monotony of existence into a • thrilling drama of endless significance.

What then was left to the modernworldling? Where could he seek satisfaction for his soul? The answer was, tlie world—that was all that was left to him. The present life, the existing, world became the be-all and the end-all of his existence. What was the world? A glorious place if kept in its own sphere and subordinated to the world .which is abovo all worlds and to God. Otherwise it was as Jolui Bunyan had long ago said, a, mere Vanity Fair. " To this the worshipper of man, the new god, was shut up. This was not only not denied by the modernist —the truth was he gloried in the fact. And this, Dr.' Gibb thought, was a new thing under the suh—now at least in the Christian centuries. Prom the beginning of time the worldliness had laid its spell on mankind, but they bad to go back to the pagan times to find what they would find on every hand at that hour, men and women who threw -themselves into Vanity Fair with the deliberate conviction that they wpuld find in it all that was necessary to their happiness and. the fulfilment of the end of their existence. Since the pagan times the worship of the world had been justified in literature, and schemes of life, and even of philosophy as it was to-day. - i .

The high priest of this dreadful cult •was Nietzsche, whose watchwords were "the evolution of the superman," "the virtue of. egoism," and "the sin of self-sacrifice." Not many people had T«ad the books_ of this moral madman, but his theories found frequent esnression in a legion of other books, in novels and magazines and so. forth. Nietzsche was an ardent pagan, a worshipper of Dionysus, the .god of the bacchanal, and of Aphrodite, the goddess of lubricity—a worshipper, as an. admirer had said, of beauty, strength, power, of everything, that manifested an abounding vitality—a fierco opponent of asceticism and of Christianity, too — Christianity which he considered the chief enemy of mankind. This was what they faced to-day—a clear-cut, definite, and even philosophic effort to substitute the world, and life for God and holy will. Worldliness was justified, and embraced as something that ; infinitely transcended Christianity. What was tho issue of this—the inevitable issue? It was first a saturnalia of wickedness, and finally satiety—a played-out v/orld. With regard to the first, tho preacher quoted from various authorities to show the unprecedented luxury and extravagance of the very rich, .and the abandonment to the llesh in all grades of human society. They had novels which professed to seek the purest idealism through tho most disgusting realism. . They had plays which represented (and only too truly represented) a large part of the modern world as a kind of polite Sodom where the intelleot is almost exclusively occupied with the frailties of men and women, and where lust had usurped the place of love. They had a larger number of brainless and brazen-faced women earning a living on the stage by the display of their charms and their .wardrobes, than ever before in the, history of dramatic ait. Motherhood was being declined, and ; illegitimacy increased as the dignity of motherhood waned. Look at the picture of. life as it is represented ill the stuff that made up the warp and woof &f multitudes of novels —hist, greed, ignoble ambitions, gilded vice, pharisaical impiety, despicable intrigues, broken marriage vows, and so on in woeful iteration.

Dr. &ibb said he could that ' night only indicate the final issue of tnia saturnalia of the flesh. It was, as he had said, satioty. It was disgust with life. While man lived according to God's laws, and under God's smile, life was an exhiliration; life in quarrel with its Maker , must always issue in a. tragedy of despair. And it did so. In many parts of the • civilised world suicide was increasing. History repeated itself. The situation was that expressed in the words of the text: "Whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, and behold all is vanity and vexation "of spirit." A played-out world is the ultimate portion of all men who make the world their god.

The Bormon closed with a strong appeal to all Christian men and women to give no place in their hearts to the worship of this world, and to those who had not yet aocepted Christ to receive His solvation now. It had always been ,a'hard and humbling oxporience to tako a salvation to which one's ' •merits constituted no claim. the ■faoe of' present tendencies • the task

would become still harder. Now. is the accepted time, now the day of salvation.

TERRACE CONCRECATIONAL CHURCH.

Tlio services at the Terrace Congregational Church yesterday were specially arranged to celebrate the sixty-eighth anniversary of the Church. In the morning the sermon was preached by. the Rov. AV. A. Evans. The evening service was taken by the Rev. J. lleedGlassou, whoso address was on "The New Testament Idea or the Church." The preacher referred briefly to the histoi'y of the Church and tc its teachings. Special hymns were sung throughout the services. The anniversary will be concluded on Wednesday, when a tea-meeting will be followed by a public meeting.

DR. HENRY'S MISSION. NO APPROACH TO SENSATIONALISM. In apologising for his unavoidable absence from the meeting of farewell to Dr. Henry on Friday, the Rov. Dr. Gibb wrote as follows . "At the welcome meeting three weoks ago I deprecated sensationalism in evangelistic, work; it is with sincere pleasure I now bear witness that both Dr. Henry and his colleague are free from anything even faintly annroaching to sensationalism in word or deed. I have been present at most of the meet-, ings, and have greatly appreciated tho deeply earnest manner in which the preacher has delivered his message, and the singer has sung the Gospel. There have been in this mission none of tho detestable jocularities which have turned, for me at least, some evangelistic missions into a perfect abomination —nothing of the egotism which too often leads' the evangelist to constitute himself the norm of all righteousness—no waste of time in the denunciation of artificial sins, but only haj-d-hitting at real sins. I have steadily felt that Dr. Henry forgets himself in his message ; that Mr. Potts forgets himself in his song; and that the inspiring passion of both men is to bring the unsaved to Christ and the Christian to a fuller,, stronger life. "May I add that tho mission would have been still, more satisfactory to me if the earlier method of inviting those concerned about tho way of salvation to go into another room where, in quietness and comparative isolation, they can be dealt with by Christians of standing and experience, had been' adopted. To attempt to lead to Christ those who have moved to the front seat of a great building and who have to be spoken to amid the seethe and' sound of a great gathering is a task attended by almost insuperable difficulties. Can the anxious heart concentrate itself on the great question under such conditions? Can tho spiritual director accomplish his work satisfactorily under the same conditions? I confess I cannot. But I recall. Dr. Henry's remark deprecating criticism of the methods of evangelists who in the way most commanded to them by their personal experience are trying to lead their fellows to Christ. - "It is too soon 3;et to speak' of the results of the mission, save in regard to the impressiveness of the fact that, night after night for nearly three weeks, so many persons have been brought together to listen to the tidings of the Kingdom. .That those who have professed conversion may be by faith kept unto salvation; that those who have resolved to serve Christ with .-'a fuller consecration may keep their vows; and that tho churches may prove to have received a decided stimulus in their task, as great as it is difficult, of bearing effective witnesß to Christ and the Gospel in this city, is 'the very sincere prayer of yours faithfully, James Gibb."

CENTRAL MISSION. There was a large attendance at the King's Theatre last night on the sion of the induction of the CentralMission Band's newly-imported /instruments.. The missioner (Rev. E. ,0. Hlamires) was in charge. After the opening exercises, He_ gave an appropriate address. He said that the . instruments had been obtained for 'the use of the band, and the extension of God's kingdom; and it was therefore only right to procure the best they could. He charged the bandsmen to remember thoir Responsibility, and use their instruments only for pure andpraiseworthy objects. Afterwards, Mr. Blamires spoke from the' Psalm 10, Verse 3—"He put a new song in my mouth"—and referred to the part music had played in the life of the Psalmist: The man. who loved music was not far from the kingdom, and should be led to a life of consecration. .' It was noteworthy that the .loveliest music was religious, and that all great Christian , movements were accompanied by song. . ' ■ /