CHURCH MEETINGS. WESLEY CHURCH, TARANAKI-STREET.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 99, 28 April 1911, Page 4

CHURCH MEETINGS. WESLEY CHURCH, TARANAKI-STREET.

ENTHUSIASM AND OPTIMISM. A large and enthusiastic meeting was held last night in the Wesley Hall to welcome the Rev. J. G. Chapman, the newly-appointed minister of Wesley Church. Mr. W. E. Bedstone presided , and addresses of welcome were given by the Rev. J. R. Clark, Sister May, Messrs. W. H. Bennett, J. L. Garrard, R. W. W&terhouse, A. W. Holmes, and L. J. Clark. Items a-ere contributed by Miss Brittain, Messrs. Howee, Kemsley, and Travers. The refreshments were supplied by the ladies of the congregation. The Rev. J. G. Chapman, on rising to reply, was received with great enthusiasm, and after thanking the^ members of the Church for the hearty manner in which they had welcomed him and his family said "(inter 'alia.) that he was fiven to understand' that the conference ad appointed him to try to resuscitate a dying Church, but he was glad that instead of an expiring cause he found a people full of enthusiasm and optimism. He bade the people to have faith — faith in God, faith in themselves, and faith in the possibilities of their Church. They sometimes sang, " Faith laughs at impossibilities, * ' And cries it shall be done." | The only man 'who could afford to i laugh at impossibilities was the man of ■ faith. He remembered the time when their Church was filled with worshippers every Sunday. Let th«m have faith 1 that what has been in the past will l>e again. " Don't talk your Church down," said Mr. Chapman, " talk it up. A man' who talked down his business would coon have no business to talk about. Wear the optimistic smile and sound the optimistic note, and soon others will catch the contagion of your optimism, and before long this Church, will take its place among the foremost of our city." Mr. Chapman appealed for the exercise of charity. "You have taken me for your minister.' 1 he said, "as a woman takes her husband, for better or for worse." He was not afraid of criticism, but let it be fair and to his face. Where there is criticism there is life. He would sooner preach to a Church full of critics than to a Church full of apathetic and indifferent hearers. If ..they found some things> in his teaching that they disagreed with, put those things on one side. They never swallowed the bones when eating fish ; and if they_ occasionally found a. bone in his preaching, lea 7» it alone and swallow the food. They might think sometimes that they were right and he was wrong, .whereas it might he just as probable that he was right arid they were wrong. While he occupied the pulpit it would stand, for a Manly, robust, reasonable type of Christianity. No preacher had a right to expect anyone to believe anything that was contrary to his reason and to his moral sense. While there was much in Christianity that transcended .human reason, thero v/as nothing that opposed human reason. He was not concerned so much about getting men into heaven when they die as getting heaven into men while they are alive. Christianity affects not only the soul of a man but the whole of his conduct and life. A man who divorced business, politics, and civic responsibilities' from his religion, had a residue of religion lhat was not worth paying postage on. to send to the heathen. He Was '"not concerned about squaring his teaching 'by the spirit level of the Church's orthodoxy.- Conformity to the traditions of a past age had been, and still was, the bane "of 'the Church. -Like the 'feet of the Chinese ladks, our minds have been held in tlie fetters of custom and tradition. This must" be an age of ■emancipation. Truth wa6 never given to be made up into formularies and creeds for 'men to subscribe to. 'Troth was given to help men to become true, and ,the supreme concern of man should be not to be orthodox but to be true— to see the truth, to love the truth,-- and to be obedient to the truth. The only orthodoxy they need trouble themselves about -was Paul's orthodoxy, " Obedience to the heavenly vision." Mr. Chapman desired that their" church" should become a home where the' -weary toilers of the city might find rest, where men who were fighting a hard battle against the world forces might be heartened and cheered, where those who • were in danger of losing themselves in the vortex of worldliness might catch visions of the spiritual and the eternal, and where the highest and divinest faculties of man might be ministered unto and strengthened. ST. PAUL'S. The parishioners of St. Paul's held their annual meeting last evening, the Rev. T. H. Sprott occupying the chair for the last time. There was a. good attendance. . > The report and balance-sheet were adopted. Officers were elected ; as -follows: — Vicar's churchwarden, Mr. T. F. Martin ; parishioners' churchwarden, }dx. W. F. Ward ; vestry, Messrs. Barraud, Dean, Hilte, Kensington, Medland, Mestayer, Shirtciiffe, Stowe, Warren, and. Professor Easterfield ; auditors, Messrs Hodds and Gill ; synodemen, Messrs. Powles, Tolhurst', Anderson, and Barraud. Mr. W. F. Barrand, a retiring churchwarden, -was heartily thanked for the manner in which he had carried out hisdutiee. ST. MARY'S, KARON. A fair number of paiisiiionere attended the annual meeting last evening. The Teport and balance-sheet w*re adopted. The vicar (Rev. A.' L. Hansel) appointed Mr. W. F. Newcomfce as ' his churchwarden, and Mr. R. Caldrwell was elected people's churchwarden. The following were elected as the' vestry for the/ current year:— Messrs. H. Cook, G. Eagle, J. W.- Henderson,- A. G. Henderson, S. B. (..Short, R. Sunley, W. A. Andrews. Mr. ;C. I. Dajseot was' elected auditor, and »Mr. R. Caldwell synodsman.