MEETINGS AND SOCIALS.

Evening Star, Issue 14163, 13 September 1909, Page 8

MEETINGS AND SOCIALS.

■ HOME AND THE SUNDAY SCHOOL. In the cours* of his address at the Moray Place Congregational Church yesterday morning, the Rev. Mr Hunt, of Timaru, referring to the training of the young, said they must realise first of all the responsibility of the parents. He had no sympathy with the suggestion to relegate' to the State school teacher a work that properly belongs to the Christian homes and the Christian life of the parents. Sundav schools are essential, but not to t;ikc the place of the' parents but to supplement their work. He thought they were on wrong lines altogether in connection with their Sunday school work. Until thev recognised that the Sunday school is an integral part of church life thev would neVer do their duty towards the 'children. Many Sunday schools lost their hold upon 'he children just at an age when it was most important that they should keep :hem. This largely was the fault of our present system. We begun at the wrong end. We put the best teachers into the Bible classes, when we should reverse the order. The strongest and the best and most capable teachers should be in the infant classes. The must important class was not the senior but the junior, and we owed it to our Sunday schools to give (hem of out very best.' We must put as much strength into the lessons and workas the State school teacher does into his Dr her daily duty. We must give not onlv our money but our life, and the hest men and women in the churches should be those engaged m the Sunday schools. Mr Hunt gave an address on 'Character' at the evening service, the church being lull. Mt Hunt, who followed the famous and martyred Dr Chalmers in missionary work m New Guinea, left for Timaru thiV morning. His three weeks' work at Moray ll.'ice has been highly appreciated. He is one of the ablest and best speakers the Christian Church of New Zealand has at the present time. If preaching and churchgoing were popular, and men and women knew what they were losing by their abstinence from church attendance, Mr Hunt ErSf k V V O difficult - v in filli »g the lnigest church. CHILDREN'S DAY. Yesterday was set apart as anniversary fAInr 1 ? ?ru eCt ! 0 V vith the Tabernacle (Church of Christ) Bible School. A special "•;«^l<l>the a ,'t mMl S * J\' ; T -' Hastle Prided, and Mr T Arnold (North-east Valley) addressed the children upon 'The Old, Old Story • Two jongs were sung hy the scholars'of Miss I!' ? e,I V? n l. Mr ? f C - F - Macdonald's passes while Miss M. Alexander sang the =olo ' Nearer my God, to Thee.' In he •m n,ng ,^ r n „ tle P reached «P™ "And a ( le child shall lead them." In dealing «ith the responsibility of parents to thei? children, he asked them to read the a.tic e which appeared in the Evening Star' of Saturday. He stated that the riehts o children should be respected, and the ?n£? 7 gHt th . C ' V haVe " the -gl> to be instructed in those imperishable virtue* winch will stand then, well throughout then- future lives, and he referred to the injunction which Jesus placed upon he Church through Peter, when he «Sd to him Peed M y lambs." The Ahnigh v God, he said, encouraged youthful service sLrfinH '• l ' h 7.^ S eek Me early \le T S ■ Nl<? ' a " d hm thafc cometh '"to -Me 1 will m nowise cast out." Mr Hastie * 'IV yOU "K ,e "f the Bible chosen of the Lord as rulers and s'kMhaf S", People ' Continuint. he said that children are passive creatures childhood hose things that will make or ruin them in the life that lies before them He impressed upon parents that in the thT in?, . 6 ( ? age . ° f , the Almighty, and hi f„?fii ed ft, tha i- devel °l™ent so that it STUART STREET HALL At the Church of Christ meeting in Stuart Street Hall last night Mr Geor-e Lawrence spoke, his subject being ' What was Established at Pentecost : Christ's Church or H,s Kingdom ? Who Compose the Church? The speaker prefaced his remarks by stating'that the theme was selected by reason of its being a source of n 4 U r.u n - I? many people who consider that Christ s Kingdom is already established, bontt Christian people take as their basis of? belief that the Kingdom is U J , ' from th <? saving of Christ : lneKingdbm of God is within vou." But the real meaning of the word translated kingdom" is "majesty." The ■Lord himself was that Majesty, and the statement, was addressed to the Pharisees i-lis bitterest enemies, who charged Him by working miracles by aid of satanic power. Such a passage, therefore, cannot serve as argument to prove the present existence of Christ's reign upon earth. It was the Church, not the Kingdom, that was established on the day of Pentel cost Jesus, as related in John's Gospel ii., told Martha that Lazarus would rise again. Martha replied : " I know that He shall rise again a.t the last day." What did this mean? Why did not the Lord comfort the mourner by telling her that her brother was in heaven ? Because the Scriptures plainly tell us that the dead know not anything." Jesus's statement agreed with this truth. He himself is the resurrection and the life. He is the only foundation for immortality. He is the head of the body—the Church. And the Church is the neucleus of the Kingdom that is yet to be. He read that if we are Christ's, then are we Abraham's seed, and heirs of the promise made to him. According to that promise, the Christian in the age to come is to be the means of blessing all humanity. In this ' dispensation the Church, rendering the terin in its original meaning, is a "called out people. Y.M.C.A. The Rev. E. 0. Manures vrave an address at the Young Men's Christian Association Rooms yesterday, his subject heinnIhe Twentieth Century Garden of Eden"' ■the speaker, m opening, referred to the different interpretations given to the storv of the Garden of Eden, some believing i't to be literally true, and some viewing Eve as youthful Innocenco in the Garden of Ileasure, disregarding the voice of conscience, and then learning by bitter experience the knowledge of good and evil In either case the spiritual significance was the same, and the moral bearing of the story could also be secyi in a studv of the fall into sin of the twentieth century youth Before him, as he set out in life, were placed the alluring apples of sin, tempting him to self-indulgence and heedlessness of bod. He had longings for an enlarged life of freedom from past restraint; and sweet ~ do the apples of a new independence appear The appeal is made to noble instincts within him. "Ye shall be as crods" was an appeal to the godlike in human nature to assert itself; but, as in the case • hv % * he . lower - Slnf "' course of following selfish inclination was followed in too many cases, and the Tesult was a yielding to animal passions, ending in an awful experience of degradation and shaint, and an awakening to the consciousness, not of the longed-for freedom of life, but of the cruel bondage of a living death. M r Blamires then pointed out that the awaken

ings of desire for an enlarged life were quite natural, the earnest longings for independence were. God-given, and it was intended they should be satisfied; but there was the right and higher course as well as the wrong and lower course might be followed. 'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant. Oh. life, not death, for which we pant, More life, and fuller, that I want.

The higher road to this more abundant life was pointed out by Christ. Buddha taught that in the extinction of desire and in a practical negation of life was to be found the height of existence, but Christ came that we " might have life, and have it more abundantly"; that "our joy might be full"; that we should be "free indeed." He appeals to the stirrings of life within us; He also says "Ye shall be as gods," but He does not call along the wrong road. An exposition of the method of Christ then followed. His teaching seemed paradoxical. He said: "He that loseth his life shall find it." Calling us to a life of independence, He told us "One is your -Master, even Christ"; but this was really in keeping with the facts of everyday life. The youth whose ambition was to gain his independence in business life commenced as an office boy, obedient to his superiors. He lost his independence in order to gain it ; he learned how to be master bv the whole process of service. No one "could be teacher who had not first been scholar ; no one could be a true father who had not first been a dutiful son; and no one could enter into the abundant life of God-like independence till he had gone into the school of life, placed himself under the tuition of the Teacher of Life, learned to dutifully obey the one Great Master and Lord of Life. The end in view, however, was not the losing of life and the surrender ot independence ; these were but the means to the true gaining of life and completion of independence. When Christ said " Obey Me," He said it not to enslave us, but that He might teach us the happy art of being truly independent. He assimilated our life till we became His and He became ours—His life became ours, His freedom and His power, and our experience became that of Paul: "Hive, yet,not I, but Christ hveth in me Such was the method of Uinst, and along this path was an everincreasing abundance of life and freedom, till the confines of the path were lost in an independence that Tesembled the life of Cod. Nature and spirit were to be so placed under the control of Christ's men that eventually it would be said • " All things are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Lnrist is God's." Hence, while it was true that no man who thought he was his own master would ever be master of himself, the one who acknowledged "One is my master, even Christ," had already begun to learn the ant of the largest' life found in complete self-masterv. '

'THEOLOGY AND MORALITY.' Tn the Alhambra Theatre last evening before a large audience, Mr W. W. Collins lectured on ' Theology and Morality ' Mr Collins spoke of theology and moraii'tv as having very little relationship one to the other, although it was quite true that in the past theology had had a very considerable effect upon morality. tt e referred to the evolution that' moral conduct had undergone, and said it was inconceivable that matters that had occurred in Dunedin within the last few weeks could be justified by the conscience of any man who recognised his obligations and duty to his fellow-man. At the conclusion of the lecture Mr J. Neil asked a few questions, which were answered Mr W. Barr (president of the Rationalist Society) occupied the chair.