RELIGIOUS REVIVAL

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 50, 22 November 1928, Page 10

RELIGIOUS REVIVAL

URGENT NEED OF THE TIMES TRUE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH Dominion. Special Service. - Auckland, November 21. “Unless the drift of the people'from, organised religion' and the excesses of our civilisation’ can be arrested, there is grave danger that they will engender barbarism,” said the Rev. W. J. Elliott in his presidential address to the Auckland District Synod of the Methodist Church to-day. “During the recent election campaign many, of the speakers'had asserted that a dire need was the development of the Dominion. The greatest need was to develop New Zealanders. We need only cite the City of Auckland as an example, where in a population of some 140,000 barely more than 47,000 people are in fellowship with a church or comprise attendants on public worship week by week,” said -Mr. Elliott. “Unless the drift from organised religion and the excesses of our civilisation can be arrested, there is- a-grave danger that they will engender, - barbarism. The same gangrene which sapped the vital-, ity of Rome is subtly working-now, and the only antiseptic for it must be faithfully used. This sovereign remedy is not in science, education, philosophy, or in even improved environment; it is in Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the race.” The true function of the church today was to bring the people to a keener sense of God, to simplify the religions system, to build up Christian character, to revive religion within the family, and restore ethical honesty in our daily life. The need of a revival was urgent, but it must be a revival of ethical religion.