UNITED CHURCH SERVICE

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LX, Issue 16, 28 February 1939, Page 5

UNITED CHURCH SERVICE

MORAL AND SPIRITUAL FITNESS

The final stage of a very successful demonstration was reached on Sunday afternoon when a united church service conducted by the ministers of religion in the district was held in the Leeston Town Hall. The attendance occupied about threequarters of the seating accommodation. The Rev. S. Bailey presided and the other ministers who took part in the service were Rev. E. Hanna who I led in the prayer, Rev. G. L. Harold who read the Old Testament lesson, and Captain Read, whose part consisted of the reading of the selected passage from the New Testament.j Rev. L. McMaster delivered the address emphasising that fitness was not a matter of bodily strength only but that there was need for moral, cultural and spiritual fitness" if man was to become the being that his Maker had ordained. The singing

was led by members of the church choirs conducted by Mr G. B. Couch, and hymns selected were old favourites appropriate to the occasion. The choir also sang the anthem, "Father, who on man dost shower." The accompaniments were played by Miss R. Bowdeh.

The Old Testament reading had described how David had set about making preparations to build the temple, saying that the house that was to be builded for the Lord "must be exceedingly magnifical, of fame, and glory throughout all countries." In the New Testament reading, which was taken from St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians, appeared these words: "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" If any man defile the temple of God, him shall Qod destroy, for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."

In his address, Mr McMaster linked up these ideas and described the three main sections of the temple—the walls, the holy place and the holy of holies. Remarking that the glory of man was that he was the temple of God, he declared that the success of the National Fitness Campaign depended on a right appreciation of this great truth. The outer walls 6f the temple, the human body, constituted God's highest creation in the physical world. We were only too slow in learning to reverence our bodies. Less than 100 years ago the Earl of Shaftsbury had a commission appointed to visit the colliery districts in England. It was revealed' that expectant mothers, as well as little children of both sexes, were harnessed to heavy trucks of coal in the oozy, dark and polluted passages of the mines. They worked 12 to 14 hours a day and saw the light of the sun for only a few hours on Sunday. What wonder that in" 1914 the nation was classed C 3 physically. We had wise provision in New Zealand for the pre-natal care of the child. The young were now being taught to swim and helped to fitness in other ways. It was the duty and high privilege of every citizen to promote physical well-being by example and every other means in his power. It must not be forgotten, however, continued the speaker, that the main part of the temple was 'not the outside but the inside. The inside of the temple consisted of two main parts, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies: The Holy Place was the Mind. It should be kept holy and pure. Whereas there was a great need to insist on freedom in reading, it was logical to restrain the young folk from poisoning their minds with "pulp literature," just as it was logical to control the sale of those poisons which could be used to destroy the body. "The mind's the standard of the Man," and we should exercise our minds by systematically setting ourselves to read one good book every week or every month according to our opportunity. The best book of all was the Bible and young people especially should study the Book of Proverbs, which contained the wisdom of the ages about sex and other subjects which intimately concerned both the mind and the body. The mind was more important than the body. It was not so much a question of how much one carried behind that punch of physical fitness as how much one had between one's two ears. The crowning glory of the temple and the main reason for its existence was the inmost shrine, the "Holy of Holies." Here reposed the ark of the covenant which contained the two tablets of stone on which the Ten Commandments were engraved. Here, too, the high priest, entered alone to commune with God and hear His word. The Holy of Holies had its counterpart in man, "the temple not made with hands." The crowning glory of man was that inner shrine of him which contained the moral law and where he had communion with the Giver of life arid health and all things. "The time has come for citizens of our nation to exercise their souls," declared Mr McMaster. "In the Motherland in times of crisis men have been thrown into leadership I who have, time and again, saved the Empire. We think of Gladstone, Lloyd George, Bonar Law, Baldwin, and Chamberlain. These are all men of prayer. They are temples of God | and their lives are directed "from the Voice that speaks to them in the inner shrine. In our young nation we have as yet faced no major crisis. But one is very close. It will be neither brawn nor brain that can , deliver us but only Divine Power working the soul of the nation."