THE CHURCH MILITANT.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume X, Issue 1926, 10 May 1888, Page 4

THE CHURCH MILITANT.

The following is an extract from a speech delivered by the Hon. Mr. Bolleston when opening a Presbyterian bazaar at Geraldine : — " To-day we meet to advocate the interests of a branch of the great Church Militant — never at peace, never resting — ever warring with evil. No regiment of this great Church Universal has fought more bravely — none has stood more staunchly by the great principles of civil and religious liberty — than that in whose interests we are to-day assembled. At times the tyranny of crowned heads has vainly endeavored to force upon it articles of faith which it has firmly refused to adopt At times the fire of persecution has raged around it, and it was not consumed. Those who have fought under its banner have fought with the open bible in their hands, fearlessly challenging the outside world to inspect their fortresses and mark well their bulwarks. They have fought with the perfervid zeal which knows no yielding, and they have ever been true, as in things temporal so in things spiritual, to their national instincts of ' holding fast that which is good.' The day of persecution, with its testing and refining fires, has passed away and the conflict still rages with foes of a subtler character. There are those who think, are affect to think, that with the spread of knowledge and scientific research faith will lose ground, and the Churches, as exponents of different phases of religious belief, cease to exercise their influence as heretofore in the world. Closer and more accurate observation shows that there is a spiritual as well as an intellectual and physical aide of human nature which will ever assert itself ; that we have as has been said a " consignee as well as a stomach," on the due consideration of which human happiness largely depends. It is to the Churches as religious organisations that we have to look for the teaching which the State cannot adequately give in our national schools. It is to the Churches that we must look for the relief of much of the suffering and want which exists and ever will exist, of a kind which never can be overtaken by the dry hard Bystem of State help euphemistically called "charitable aid." According as the Churches realise their functions and perform their duties, they will grow in strength und their hold upon the affections of the people. We are apt to look back on Xavier and Loyola, on Luther and Melancthon, ou Baxter, Newton, Whitefield, and Wilberforce, as men who stirred the religious impulses of the age in which they lived to a greater extent than any individual of more modern times. I doubt whether we are right. Their work differed in kind, and religious enthusiasts and reformers were comparatively fewer in number in those days and more notorious ; but I question whether the present generation is not more widely and more usefully, if less sensationally, influenced by tho preaching and writings of the leaders of its religious thought. Take the example of the late G. W. Robertson, of Brighton, Charles Bingley, Norman Macleod, Spurgeon, and others, whose influence is felt through their writings in the uttermost parts of the earth. Our own statistics, I am happy to say, show that the work of the religious bodies is spreading with settlement to every corner of the colony, and funds are not wanting where the work is actively pursued."