METHODIST CHURCH

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 September 1927, Page 8

METHODIST CHURCH

JUBILEE CELEBRATIONS. Founded at Grey mouth sixty years ago, the St. Paul’s Methodist Church Diamond Jubilee celebrations commenced yesterday, the special services being well attended. The principal preacher was the Rev. W. Greenslade, Chairman of the North Canterbury District, and formerly of Greymouth. He was assisted by the Rev. G. E. Brown (Circuit Superintendent). Ah occasional address was delivered by Mr Greenslade, at a service held in the Town Hhll last evening. The orchestra and choir were under the baton of Mr T. F. Savage, and Miss F. I. Broad was the accompanist to ‘the soloists. The order of service was as follows :—lnvocation Prayer by the choir; hymn, “All people that on earth do dwell” ; prayer, Rev. G. E. Brown; solo, “Peace, Hold Thou My Hand,” Miss C. Hopgood; hymn, “All hail the power of Jesu’s Name” ; lesson, Revelations, chapter 22, Rev. W. Greenslade; Gounod’s anthem, “Send Out Thy Light,” choir; hymn, “Onward, Christhian Soldiers” ; solo, “How Many Hired Servants” (SulHf van), Mr J. Hadland ;address, Rev. *W. Greenslade ; hymn, “Abide with Me” ; Benediction; Vesper, “Hallelujah Chorus,” choir and friends.

In opening his address, the Rev. Greenslade said he had been asked to refer to the fact that the Borough Councillors were present that evening. He gladly'did so, and felt honoured in having an opportunity of speaking to them. Last, but not least, he wanted to say how delighted he was, as an old West Coaster —having spent his boyhood in the town—to be back amongst them, and particularly on that, very epoch-making occasion, the Diamond Jubilee of the Church. Words could not, in the nature of things, adequately express what he felt that night, and he was not going to refer so much to the years that had long since gone by—they would hear about those at the meeting next Wednesday evening. He wanted rather to speak on general lines to those present, lines that quite likely might be more helpful than the lines that, possibly, they thought he ought to speak on—those of the years gone by. He would like to testify to the unpayable debt of gratitude that he, as an individual, owed to the local Methodist Church. It was there he received his early religious training, and, if there was any good in his life and he had been ab!6 (he supposed he had) to do a little good —he hoped still to continue doing so—he believed that it was in a great measure owing to the fact that when he was a lad in the local Church and Sunday School, he was brought under the influence of the teaching of good men and women. Some of them had gone long since to the Church Triumphant, and those who were in mid-life, and over midlife, were striving to carry on the work they began. He hoped they would carry it on worthily and well. He saw many familiar faces there that evening, but he found, as he came back to Greymouth, that the familiar faces were a fast vanishing quantity. They came and they went, but the Church never left them. It was like the mountains and the rivers, which were with our forbears, were with us, and would be with our children and our children’s children.

He wanted to talk that night about the eternal things, because they were imperishable. While the passing time was often very important, it was not anything like so important as the timeless and the eternal —the things of righteousness and the things of the Kingdom of Heaven. He would not only talk to the elderly part of the congregation —he supposed there was an elderly part—but he wanted in particular to talk to the younger people. It would be a frank and free talk, such a"s lie thought would become the great and auspicious occasion. He was one of them, and felt that they belonged to him. He was going to talk freely on

THE RAf’E OF LIFE

He based his address on the words of Paul in the first book of Corinthians, chapter 9, verse 24: “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.” Paul had evidently seen the great athletes of his day striving for the mastery at footracing, jumping, playing ball, and wrestling. He referred to those great Grecian games, and he gave to what he saw a religious turning and meaning. “So run (as the athletes ran) that ye may obtain.” In that far-off day, as in the present day, people came from far and near to witness the fleet of foot and the strong of arm. They contended with each other for the mastery, and great was the applause that came to the fleetest of foot and the strongest of arm. He was, by common consent, acclaimed the victor.

“Life, the thing that you and I are so fond of, and rightly so, for it is a great thing to live. Believe me, whatever the pessimists may say, it is a great and glorious thing to live. Life has been defined, but I think quite inaptly, as warfare, and there are figures of speech in the Bible, and much literature out of the Bible, describing life as warfare. Life is not so much war —where one is killed and the other kills—as a game, a contest, a race. Paul was speaking out of his great fund of knowledge when he said, ‘So run, that ye may obtain.’ Shakespeare, and some of you read him a little, but not so much as he used to be read, referred to life as a game. He said, ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.’ Shakespeare knew what he was talking and writing about when, he likened life to a game, and all the people as contestants in that game. Often, times today, just as in the days of Paul, there are just a few people in the games as contestants, and many are merely on-

lookers. ” The preacher went on to tell of how he was at a football match at Christchurch the other day. There were just a few fine, hefty' men, in training, who were playing, and it was a great game of football; but there were hundreds who were not taking part in the game afall, except in sympathy. They were there as bystanders anQ onlookers. But in' the great game of life, because God had given us life, none of us could be merely onlookers. We were all participating, and simply could not help ourselves if we lived. “It is for us to live worthily and well, to so run that in the end, when it comes to the last lap in the journey of life, we may not be laggards in the race, but, as Paul says, we may obtain.” There were rules in the game, continued the preacher. If a man was a

sport, he‘ had got to play without breaking the rules. If he did break the rules, and thereby got to the goal before the others, he was rightfully looked upon as a cheat, a make-be-lieve, and a humbug. He was not a true sport. Yet everyone knew that while there were people who would not for a moment consider it was right to break the laws of a game, many people cheated and defrauded in the greatest game of all, the race and the game of life. In our poor judgment, we thought such people won many of the prizes, but we wanted a new measuring rod by which to measure the unsuccessful and the successful. We might easily get wrong, because we might measure erroneously. What would God say about the man or the woman who breaks the rules? What did the Lord Jesus Christ say? He was the perfect Man —once, in the history of the world, it had produced a perfect Man. He who knew what was big and little, worthy and unworthy, and, best of all, lived for the world and attained to the shining heights of moral and spiritual life; He said; to paraphrase His words—if they were calculators and if they were great at sums—“ Count it up.” “What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world”—and no man could do that —yet our Lord said, if anything so impossible as that could happen—He said, “If a man lost himself in the getting of it, lost his soul, what would it profit him?” The athletes of old who ran in the race and contested for the victory, so Paul told us, always had before them before they started and all the race through, the thought of the goal. They always had it in front of them in their mind’s eye. Just as the footracer ran with the goal steadily in view, so should everyone race along life’s way and play the game as they raced, ever having in view the best of all goals, the goal of the Kingdom of God.

It was only a fading crown that the athletics of old raced for. According to Paul, who saw how it was done, the winner only had a few leaves put upon his brow, and he was acclaimed the victor. But they knew that a thing could not always be measured by its intrinsic value. The other day, at Christchurch, he saw a cup being shown in a jeweller’s window. A number of men were standing before the window, and passing their comments about the cup. He judged it to be worth many pounds, but those men did not view it as being worth so many pounds. It had more value in it than that—they thought of what it represented—the joy of victory, achievement, conquest, triumph. There were many starters in the journey of life who began well, Avith a high goal in front of them. But they knew from sad experience sometimes that the sky became dim and blurred, and, as they got older they got harder, and were possibly not so wise as when they were young, and they missed the way.

STARTERS AND STAYERS “The world is full of starters,” said the preacher, “but the prizes of life are to the stayers and the stickers, not to the beginners. What makes a good footballer, a good tennis player, a good cricketer, a good scholar, a Igood man or women? —practice’ What makes the practical saint, whose head is in the air but whose feet tread the ways of helpfulness among men, and who is a copy of Jesus Christ? It is practice! There is no magic or mystery about it. The man or woman who endures to the end receives the crown of life.”

The races of old were temperate in all things. They not only had the goal in view and ran steadily towards it, but they practised temperance in order that they might win through. Even in the days of Jesus Christ, athletes exercised great temperance and forbearance for ten months out of the twelve. If they were asked why they prohibited themselves things they liked, they said they were in training and did not want to be failures. They wanted to achieve victory. A little while ago, he was travelling in the company of a young fellow, and noticed that the latter was eating very little, although it was a long journey. They got on speaking terms, and the preacher asked, “Why are you so abstemious?” The reply was, “I am in training, and I have always to keep that in view and order my conduct accordingly.” For a belt, a medal, or a paragraph in the newspapers, people would deny themselves things thev liked, yet for the greatest game of all, the supreme prize, the prize of the Kingdom of God, they were not willing to make any sacrifice whatever. They wanted to go where their foolish inclinations would draw them. If, for a paragraph in the newspaper, or for a medal or a belt, a man or woman was willing to deny himself or herself things they liked, how much more willing they should be to deny them'selves things they liked, but were not helpful, because they wanted to get to the end of the journey. “God does not want to prohibit anything that can give you lasting happiness and satisfaction. God is not the giant killjoy that some people represent Him to be. There is no one so greatly misjudged as God!” The Puritans were good people in their way, but were very misguided in their conception of their religion. They went abroad, cracking pieces of statuary to atoms, because they were afraid people would worship the statues. They smashed the stained-glass windows of churches and cathedrals for the same reason. They were wrong, and everyone now admitted they were wrong. The best treasures of literature, art, painting, music, and everything that was good and helpful in the world was the property of the Christian, and the Christian could enjoy them to the full.

Young fellows in particular knew that if they were sports they did not play any game merely for themselves. It was each for all and all for each, and a man. had to be loyal—and usually was —to the captain of the team. One of the most significant and eloquent figures of speech in the Bible was upon those lines. It spoke of “the Captain of our salvation.” Were they willing to be loyal to Him, to the truest, divinest, and best they knew of and desired to be? They must sometimes fall by the wayside, but He would pick them up, bless them, and send them on their way rejoicing. There were people to-day who were talking about success. He heard one of them at Christchurch. That man was talking about chance and fortune, and trying to account for the fact that he was not the success he once thought he would be. He had been trusting to the wrong things, to luck, fortune, some good turn in the road. That was not the way to true success in any realm of life. Life itself was one long school, and they had always to carry their satchel. They were always learning. True success always came to the man and, woman who was loyal to

she God of the road. But how many things there were that were apt to sidetrack us and make us forget the Divine !

To illustrate his remark regarding sidetrackng, the preacher related the legend of Atalanta, who was very fleet of foot. When she was offered the hand of any man in marriage she would say, “If you can run faster than I can, I will marry you.” According to the legend, many a man did his utmost, but failed. One day a fine handsome prince came along and said to her, “I will contest with you in the race.” He did so, but he was wiser than any other contestant. Before he started, he took three golden apples. The princess could run faster, but when she was just about to leap ahead of him, he trundled an apple in her path. She stopped to pick it up, and so lost time. He did the same thing again and again, and he leapt to victory. “There are too many thngs thrown to us along the journey of life. We stop to pick them up, and we lose time. We loiter along the way, and then we lose the race. God gave to each of us wisdom and strength, that we may engage in the race and persevere, so that at the end of the journey of life we may say, with Paul: ‘I have finished my race. I have kept the faith.’ ”