PAIN THAT PURIFIES

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 9, 11 January 1923, Page 7

PAIN THAT PURIFIES

THE CHURCH AND RELIGION

SAINTS IN MAYFAIR.

(FROM OCR OWN CO-RESPONDENT.) LONDON, 24th November. The Archbishop of York, relative to his serjnon at the Sheffield Church Congress : " The plea which I put before the Church in the opening sermon of the Church Congress at Sheffield has, I fear, suffered through the quite excessive prominence given in the Press to a single phrase Judging from letters and. newspapers sent to me, it might be supposed that the sermon consisted simply of one sentence. It was the sentence in which I said of the religious problem of the time, ' Men want a true religion as never before; that is its hope. They do not find it in the Church; that is its trouble. ' To put the matter bluntly, religion attracts, the Church repels.' Of course, it was, and was meant to be, ' an hard saying,' intended—may I say with humility and reverence—like the hard sayings of oar Lord, to force men to think. It wa3 put in ths form of a paradox, and the point of a paradox is its touch of exaggeration. But this legitimate measure of exaggeration has been swollen out of all due proportion, and therefore distorted by being isolated and torn from the context to which ifc was meant to call attention. Since in consequence of this there has plainly been much misunderstanding, it may be worth while for me here to say just this: (1) "By ' the Church' I meant not only the Church of England, but the Church in its widest and most popular sense as the whole society of professing Christians—what in another general phrase we call -' organised Christianity.' (2) "I was not thinking or speaking of the mass of people who pay no heed to religion, whom religion itself often repels, and whom the Church might attract only at the cost of disloyalty to the exacting claims on faith and conduct which it ought to make. I was thinking and speaking not of these, but, as I said, ' of the men and women, especially the younger men and women, who eagerly desire a spiritual religion, and yet stand apart from the Church.' (3) " The -vhols basis of my plea—it ought to be superfluous to say—was faith in ths Church, faitb that it was meant to be, ought to be, and might be, a great attractive power drawing men who feel the need of religion to its living Lord and head. My point was, and is, that it will so draw men only if they see in it a living experience of the Presence and Power of Christ—ace this in the unity of the. Church, in its care for men s social life, and in the personal lives of its members. lam sure that what I said on this iheme, with whatever faults in, word or emphasis, is true. lam sure that before the Church can really pi-oclaim the eternal Gospel it must evangelise itself. It is as easy as it is profitless to win applause at Church assemblies by declaring that all is veil, but as soon as a mar ..or a church says : 'It is well with me,' power anc' progress stop 4 We know the judgment deserved by any Bingle .church which presumes to say ■ •*£ am satisfied with myaelf, and I th^BiGod that I am not as other churches are.' I would infinitely rather err on the side of concern than on the side of complacency. lam told thai to say theae things gives pain, bet this is the sort of pain that purifies. It stirs a great longing to possess more fully the joy and power which flow from the Gospel and the Sacraments which are committed to the Church of Christ."-