PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 7 May 1925, Page 4

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.

ANNIVERSARY SOCIAL.

• Tastefully decorated with flowers and greenery by. the ladies of the congregation, the Sunday School Hall of St. John’s Presbyterian Chiirch, Hawera, was comfortably filled last evening on the occasion 'of the annual anniversary social. The Rev. R. E. Evans presided, and the Rev J. W. McKenzie, ot Stratford, delivered the address. Taking as his text part of the opening verse of the. fifty-first chapter of Isaiah.: “Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged,” Mr McKenzie asked the congregation to trace back the way they had come. The Hawera church was 51 years old, and the foundations of the charge had been laid by those who had long since gone to claim the reward of faithful ser r vice. That in itself was a past to' be proud of—there was nothing more inspiring than a glorious past. But back beyond ‘the Church in Hawera, back beyond the Church in New Zealand, their history traced .to Old Scotland, reaching through the sturdy faith of the Covenanters to the Reformation, where they found their Protestant Church springing from some of the grandest figures, some of the brightest intellects, of the -world. And back of that again they found the heroes of the early Church, 'the Apostles, and the Master. There was the rock from which they were hewn :■ “Rock of Ages, cleft for me,” Audi the hole from which, they had been digged? The soul of man had been digged from the heart of the Bather, God; the Divine spirit had breathed the breath of life into his nostrils. It was a wonderful thought, an inspiring thought; and, a thought! in every way befitting an anniversary. During the evening the following fl'iends contributed items: Mrs A. M. Young (pianoforte solo); Miss Olive Tait and Miss Murdoch, and Messrs W. Ende. Green and W. GV- Simpson (solos); Mr W. Watts (flute solo); Mrs Strange and Miss Trotter (elocutionary items); and Messrs Simpson and L. A. Taylor (impromptu humourous conversation). Ample onportunitv was provided for informal chats, with the renewing- of old and the making of new friendshins; and the Indies furnished a dainty and abundant supper.