FAMOUS PREACHER.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 19 May 1928, Page 13

FAMOUS PREACHER.

MAUDE ROYDEN ARRIVES. A SINCERE CHRISTIAN. “We needs must love the highest when we see it,” is a saying which slips back into the mind from schoolroom days on meeting Miss Maude Roy den, the famous woman preacher, who arrived in Wellington last week from San Francisco. Hers is a personality which, considering the meaning so often given to the word, one would hesitate- to describe as “religious,” and yet there is no doubt that her magnetism, sympathy, humour, saneness, and courage —qualities which at once impress anyone meeting her —are blended by some deeper spiritual and controlling force. She is what most of us wish to be, and few of us are-—a sincere Christian. Miss Royden comes to New Zealand from a tour of America, where she was moist kindly received by the Episcopalian churches, corresponding to the Anglican churches here and at Home. She travelled from east to west across the Continent, and spoke at many ot the State universities and. colleges in the Middle West, at the Wellesley Women’s College chapel near Boston, at the St. Louis Cathedral, and in the Episcopalian church at Sacramento at the invitation of the Bishop of Sacramento. In this city she also spoke to the National Convention of the Y.W. C.A., an organisation which bad been very good to the visitor. These were but a few of -Miss Royden’s engagements. Everywhere she was flooded with engagements to speak, and everywhere she was immensely struck with the American women. “They are extraordinarily publicspirited,” she said to a Wellington “Post” reporter, “and the way they keep their homes and yet do public work is simply astounding. It may be that tlieir menfolk expect a good deal of them and think they should take a part in public life. Of course, while I was in America there was all that hullabaloo over my smoking. You would think no American had ever smoked, and that there never had been a murder in Chicago. It was the Methodist Women’s Home Missionary Society which made the fuss, and they even forbid their ministers to smoke. After that it became a Press stunt and raged from coast to coast, but only a tiny section of the people made the uproar, and the main effect was to give me a bigger public than I ever had before.” The rumour that she believed in companionate marriages, said Miss lloyden, smilingly, had died a natural death. Miss Royden, who is a sister of Sir Thomas Royderi, chairman of the Cunard Line, explained how she had come to take up preaching. She had been speaking in the cause of suffrage, and as she became more and more interested in the movement, she studied and spoke of it from the religious aspect, which caused a tremendous amount of interest, and resulted in a request from the officers of the City Temple, London, to speak there one Sunday._ “I was very surprised at the invitation,” said Miss Royden, “but I went. My jaw dropped when at the conclusion of the service they said, ‘and you will come again ?’ I felt I had said all that I had to say! But I went again, and then when Dr. Fort Newton was called to the Temple, he wished for an assistant, being in poor health. They asked him if he would take a woman, and he replied, ‘Certainly,’ and so I became the assistant pastor. But I have never joined the Congregational Church,” continued Miss Royden, “and will always remain an Anglican. I used to regret that the Anglican Church would not ordain me as a minister, but now I think 1 am freer as I am, and prefer to remain a ‘free lance.’ ”

Asked if both at Home and during her travels she had . noted signs, not. of an organised revival in any special church, with any particular leader, but an increased individual interest in things spiritual, Miss Royden said she undoubtedly had. She had met little groups of people in England and Ameri-Ic-a who met and discussed religious matters among themselves, and many of the people who came to her Guildhouse services belonged to no particular Church; did not even call themselves Christians, and yet were interested- in the services and discussions held there. “A witty Frenchman has said, ‘Mankind is incurably religious,’ and I believe that,” said Miss Royden, Miss Royden is inclined to think that the present Prayer Book controversy in England will end in disestablishment—“unless the Archbishop of Canterbury can dodge it. He’s the only person who can!” In this connection she spoke of the Rev. 11. R. L. Sheppard, whose recent book, “The Impatience of a Parson,” has created an unusual stir at Home' and abroad. “Dick Sheppard has the ear of the people of England as no parson lias had it for generations,” said Miss Royden. “We call him the ‘radio parson,’ for by this means he reaches millions of people. He asks for disestablishment and disendowment, .and he® wants the Church of England to lead the way in all abandonment of privileged positions.” Miss lloy-den’s tour of the world is being made under the auspices of the British Commonwealth League, and with the view of seeing for herself just what the women of other countries are doing. She has heard that New Zealand women have done very little with their franchise, hut is inclined to think they are under-estimating their achievements.