FAREWELL SERMON

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 114, 8 February 1937, Page 14

FAREWELL SERMON

Canon James’s Departure

MESSAGE FROM MR. PARKER

At the morning service at St. Paul’s Pro-Cathedral yesterday, when Canon P. James, as a prelude to his farewell sermon before leaving the parish on furlough in England, mentioned that Mr. Robert Parker, the veteran organist of the church, had sent a special message from his sick bed. The canon said he knew the loving sympathy of all church people would go out to their old friend. He asked all to remember him in their prayers and felt confident the grace of God would be with Mr. Parker in his illness.

The preacher took for his text Corinthians x’iii, 14, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all,” and stressed the wonder and the magnificence of this message of prayer, second only to that of the Master. It was, he said, truly an inspiration most fitting for the season of Lent which would begin this week. He drew special attention to the fact that in the message sent by St. Paul, love was set first, and this was always needed to enable men to face the trials of the world, a really divine factor necessary in the forming of character. In a brief reference to the work of St. Paul’s, the c.anon again asked for the greatest help possible to the Rev. G. McKenzie, by whose assistance he was able to get away for a rest from active work. He was thankful to the people and parish for anything that had been done in making Christian love an active force in the lives of the people, so that in time love and fellowship might abound for good in the scheme of things and God's purposes might be realised so far as was possible. He felt he could in all humility look back and realise that, in spite of many failings, the grace of God had worked for good in the life of the parish. He prayed earnestly that this might continue in the future.