MUSCULAR CHRISTIANITY

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 61, 15 March 1924, Page 13

MUSCULAR CHRISTIANITY

The church, it is generally admitted, even by many of the clergy^ is losing Us "punch," but in at least, one parish in Sydney it is leaving no. stone .unturned to vitalise its force. In the Anglican Church in one of the Vjjopulons • Sydney suburbs the clergyman is' establishing the gospel of muscular churchmanship' by the inauguration of a. boxing club. The opening night of the club was something to bo remembered. There were recitations and sentimental songs, and orchestral selections, to give a little diversity to the function, but the amateur "pugs" predominated. It suggested the Stadium in the odour of sanctity. In the best ring-side manner, the men of the parish "put their hands together," for the local lads of the Church who had donned the gloves, and who banged .and sloshed and biffed one another with much »est. "Quit ye like men aiid; fight.".' ..They were practising the gospel according to Samuel, and they revelled in it.Hefty pi-o-<W*Jon§]fc ftfcpui eij[hi: w tjl-- *f.UntlftH

to give the clergyman a helping hand— a strange mixture of the parsonical and the pugilistic, in an endeavour to restore the. Church some of its old, healthy, practical militancy. The little show was also brightened by one of the parsons present divesting himself of his back-to-front collar, and giving an exhibition bout of jiu-jitsu. The parson had his opponent on the floor when an uncouth young parishioner, mistaking the church hall for the Stadium, bawled out, "Put in the leather, mate." Whether or not the club's opening night closed with benediction is not recorded.