POWER OF CHURCH

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 120, 18 February 1928, Page 23

POWER OF CHURCH

HER ASPIRATIONS AND ACHIEVEMENTS CHANGING INSTITUTION Dominion Special Service. Christchurch, February 17. “The Church lives and moves within an unshaken realm,” said the Rev. W. J. Elliott in his presidential address at the opening of the Dominion Methodist Conference. “The prophets of pessimism,” he added, “may continue to predict her collapse, but this has been a chronic device throughout her history, and need not distract us now’. We do not judge her by what she is, so much as by what she has the capacity to become. Her aspiration counts for more than her achievement The striking thing is, not that she is so weak, but rather that, in spite of the inconsistencies of her supporters, she has persisted so successfully in her witness. If she were not a Divine institution, designed by the grace and providence of God to develop humanity to yet nobler heights, she would have decayed long ago. When we remember the great and significant fact that she has survived through all the ages, and appealed to men of every race and caste in all generations, we can cherish the assurance that she is gifted with the finest heroism of all—the heroism of endurance. “But change and decay cannot be ignored, and whatever the Church has to cast aside as obsolete, she must call into fuller utility life and adventure, adaptation and experiment, courage, and a larger vision. These she cannot do without. This may seem to imply that her present organisation and peculiar forms are not intended to be permanent. Ido not believe they are. No Church as it exists to-day bears much resemblance to the Church in her early beginnings. The time is opportune for her to widen her receptive powers and to think in a bigger way. Where she once thought parochially she must not think nationally, and where she thougth nationally she must now thing internationally, and where she once thought in material terms she must now think in spiritual ones. It is simply imperative for an intensive life and an inspired mission.” Mr. Elliott went on to say that they could not measure the worth of religion to the world in the cold, calculating, matter-of-fact spirit of commerce, and yet it was not exempt from the acid test of comparative values. But every estimate of it was incomplete, because the sustaining of faith, hope, and love in any country was something too sublime to be summed up according to a miserable market measure. Religion was a thing of infinite value. If it were not for its influence, public conscience and the tone of public opinion would be lower and weaker than they were to-day. Age would not be reverenced, infancy loved, and human life held in such holy regard.