SIXTY-SIXTH ANNIVERSARY

Evening Star, Issue 19263, 31 May 1926, Page 12

SIXTY-SIXTH ANNIVERSARY

CELEBRATORY SERVICES AT KHOX CHURCH .Services in celebration of tho sixtysixth anniversary of the opening of Knox Church and of tho sixth year of the Rev. Tuilordi Yuillo’s ministry in the church were held yesterday, when there were large attendances. Special music was rendered by the choir, under the leadership of the organist, Mr W. Paget Gale, Mr Jas. Paterson being tho soloist. At both services Mr Ynille welcomed the strangers in the church who had come in response to tho invitations sent out for Church Rally Month. In the morning Mr Ynille preached from tho’text “ Oh, Lord, Thou art stronger than I and hast prevailed” (Jeremiah xx., 7), and snid: “The kind of men God uses to uplift mankind are men of tho type ol Jeremiah, men who distrust themselves, and yet know’ that God has hurled them into -the battle for humanity. To uplift always means a battle, and every church that is alive is always in a state of ferment. We should not mistake the difficulties the church is up against for defeat. In the church to-day we are surrounded by difficulties, but we are not defeated.' Let all who are working for humanity, even if they feel unfitted for the work, or feel that their work is fruitless—let them just fight the mote. If there is anything effective in their work at all it will bring glory to God, not to themselves, and in any case neither wo nor our follows can judge our work. God will judge.” In tho evening ‘Mr Ynille preached from the text “They have healed the. hurt of my people lightly, saying ‘Peace, peace, when there is_ no peace.’” Speaking on tho subject, ‘When Optimism Is Accursed,’ tho preacher maintained that what makes blind optimists is greed of gain on their part and lack of a religion flint is truly ethical —a lack of the sense of personal sin. It is those who are conscious most of wrong within that are conscious most of the wrongs that, afflict all humanity. “ 1 want to preach among yon,” said the preacher, “tho holiness'of God—not that holiness that a sheltered saint would see from a cloistered cell, but that active holiness that drives a crusader into armor nnd > out into the battle of men and_ things, there to express God’s holiness in men’s lives and deeds. To he a_ Christian means believing in the Kingdom of God. and that means believing that all the evils that at present affliet humanity arc in the last resort curable.”