SINFUL STORY.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIII, Issue 78, 16 March 1923, Page 6

SINFUL STORY.

ARCHBISHOP JULIUS’ SERMON. THE PRODIGAL SON. o Sydney, March !). During the course of a .sermon to a packed congregation in St. Mark’s Church, Sydney, last Sunday evening, Archbishop Julius, of New Zealand, declared that there was an awful lot of sin in Sydney, a lot of pleasure, a lot or material prosperity, but a still greater lot of misery, so many represented bv the younger son. Th .Archbishop put the parable of the Prodigal Son in quite a new setting. It was really a study of the elder son in the parable.

The elder son, the Archbishop said, represented the members of the Jewish Church of that day. He might be represented to-day by their own Church of England, its bishops, clergy, devout churchmen, and the people whom they regarded as the backbone of the church. He would not speak lightly of that great mass of people who went to church to worship and pray. But with their privi-, leges there was an clement cf great danger, because chore was a younger son, represented by those who cut themselves oil’ from public worship, from open profession of religion and memberfhip of the church. That, us they knew, was entirely fashionable to-day, and was possibly, increasing. “I am not thinking so much of tne thoroughly degraded, the openly sinful, but of those who have left the Father house,” said the Archbishop. ‘‘Wherever they may have gone, whether among the swine, or to some very pleasant part, the influence of religion have died out of their lives. And there you have the representatives of the younger son. ‘‘There is very little sympathy between those who worship and pray and the big outside world that goes on its way and takes no interest in religion. Why did that younger son go away? I am not talking about him, but you. Have you anything to do with the wan* •derings of the younger son? The most deadly influence in the church is coniplancency. I have had much to <l9 with clergy—clergy who are dull, clergy who are stupid, weak clergy, strong clergy. I can get along.with any or them, but the man who is complacent, for the Lord help him! “Wo arc all touched with it,” continued the Archbishop. “Numbers in the census does not put us on top. What arc we in the sight of God? There is tt certain complaireency whereby men can sit in the paw and be quite content with everything —with 20 at early communion, while there were 7000 who never came near the place at all. “Why did the younger son go away? If was not lack of parental love. It was probably the elder brother. He must have been an unpleasant fellow, and the younger one couldn’t stand tt any more. Have you ever thought how infinitely attractive Jesus Christ was! People in Sydney see u bishop coining along and they get on the other side of the street. He is not attractive.

“A man goes to a public-house and gets a welcome. He comes to your church and you let him go without a movement, and he never comes again, because he has had a touch of the elder brother. Jesus Christ attracted the sick, the poor, the shamed, because ho was one of them. The first person the man who is going to the uevil out to go to is the parish priest, but generally he is the last man. The elder brother is very stiff and starchy.” When a vicar in London, Archbishop Julius had asked a parishioner the name of a man sitting just behind him in church. He,couldn’t tell him. It was suggested that he was a newcomer. “Oh, dear, no,” said the parishioner,. ‘ ‘ we have both been coming here for 25 years. ’ ’ Yet he didn’t know his name or anything about him, and didn’t care. ‘ ‘ That is a thoroughly typical Church of England elder brother,” remarked the Archbishop, “letting his young brother go to the devil, and doesn’t care. “This parable is, in truth, the patable of the Father Who loves us all. Your business and mine, as true Christians in the world, is not to go to church, but to represent the Father. ”