APPRECIATION.

Evening Star, Issue 20780, 30 April 1931, Page 3

APPRECIATION.

TO TUK EDITOU. Sir,—.Probably tho strongest address ever given I'rom its pulpit was delivered in First Church on Aiizac evening. It was matchless in its beauty of conception and in its spiritual strength. The Rev. Mr Stevely rendered a distinct service to all who were privileged to hoar him. The pity of tlio matter is that such a sermon is the exception to the prevailing rule, tint the fact that it was given from the pulpit of an orthodox church constitutes an emphatic denial to those who assort that religion has entered into a state of decline. It is far from declining. The fact remains, however, that the church has too long refused to realise a changing State, and lias procrastinated overlong in the reshaping of her message to meet the altered conditions. To hear the Rev, Mr Stevely, however, is to realise the fact that there are clergymen among ns who apprehend the trim state of alfairs and possess the courage to proclaim their conviction The church will receive new vital force and'humanity will ho much’ the better for it when such a sermon ceases to»bo an arresting exception.—l am, etc., Alpha. April 30.