THE WORK OF GOD

Hokitika Guardian, 12 June 1937, Page 2

THE WORK OF GOD

RELIGION JN OUR DAY. (Contributed by the Hokitika Ministers’ Association). Religion is reviving. Now anyone who makes as assertion should be ready to produce evidence to back it up. Well here is some. The first piece is that there is a greater volume of religious literature not only coming from the press but being bought and read to-day than ever before. In, fact this new religious awakening in our own itme is producing a literature of its own. That shows that it has attained the status of a popular movement, for while a man can write a book if lie wants to and a handful of men might write a lot of books, in takes the popular demand to persuade the hard headed publisher to print them. What is more, the public are'not only buying these books in large numbers but they are paying qu'te high prices for some of them. For example “The Fool hath Said” by Beverly Nichols sold at 11s fid. This puts the literature well out of the cheap novel class. It shows it is not propaganda. It is not being toisted upon a long-suffering people as some patent medicines are. It is something which the public are- seeking and offering good money for. VIRILE RELIGION. The second piece of evidence rises out of the first. These books present a living and virile religion. Let us repeat that they “present” a religion. They are not love stories which use a Manse or a Vicarage as a background. They are not fictions.- which try to make capital out of the church. They are not scene's from clerical life. They present religion pure and unadulterated. There is -no tone of apology in them as there would have been a few years ago. The authors are not on the defensive with their backs to the wall, standing up for the church or "the Bible or religion. They have carried the war into the enemy’s; camp. They attack with conviction and courage. There is a sort of flourish to every thrust of their swords. The titles alone are revealing. “One Thing I Know” (A. J. Russell), “Lite Began Yesterday” (Stephen Foot), “What 1 Owe to Christ” \C. F. Andrews),, “Pentecost” (J. T. Brice), “Something Happened” (Mildred Cable and Francesca French), “Find.ng Men for Christ,” (G. F. Dempster), Deeds ?)f Earing” ( ir Wilfred Gienlell), “Vio_ torious Living” (E. Stanley Jones),. “God in the Slums” (Hugh Redwood), “God Does Guide Us” and “He is Able” (W. E. Sangster), Triumphs of His Grace” (W. J. Smart), “The Transforming ' Friendship” (Leslie D. Weatherhead), “The Church in Action” (Father Winslow), and "By the Grace of God”—which is a collection of short pieces by many authors. THE NOTE OF AUTHORITY What is yet another significant piece of evidence is that these books present religion in a tone of authority—the authority of the eye-witness. ’They sound just like the first apostles for they speak of what they know and testify of what they have seen. The title of A. J. Russell’s second book, “One Thing I ,Know” strikes -'the dominant note and all the writers seem to sound variants of that and say “One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” Many of the authors tell of personal experience and for an experience of religion ;to attract publishers and people, it must be pretty vital. These men do not stage a sensational religious experience for the sake of publicity and then retire behinf j. smoke-screen of anonymity to avoid the searching test of public scrutiny of their way of life. Beverley Nichols, the brilliant author, ‘Hugh Redwood, a deputy managing editor of the London “News-Chronicle,” Stephen Foot, oil company manager, and school master, A. J. Russell, London journalist, Ivan Menzies the J. C; Williamson comedian, these men, laymen all, make their claims to a new quality of; life and sign thfrir names. So they stand before the whole world, in the glare of modern publicity, ready, and able to back up the evidence of;

their books with a life that will stand inspection. ‘ RELIGION THAT WORKS Rudyard Kipling asks: “What avails the classic bent, And what the chosen word Against the undoctored incident That actually occurred?” And he is right. The evidence trtat convinces are the actual facts of what happened. We need not go past the news columns of this paper to find records of things rdigion has been doing. Thursday’s issue of the “Guardian” prints cabled news of an Oxford Group Conference at Leeds, which bad brought together representatives of fifteen nations. A little while ago there was a cable about a demonstration in Utrecht, massing 100,000 people” at a meeting. Recently, the ordinary daily papers in Denmark described the change that religion had made in that country as a “national resurrection.” Here are some other events which have been in the news lately. Many thousands of dollars came into the Canadian treasury after the visit of a team of lay evangelists from over the Atlantic. The tension between Black and White in South Africa has been greatly eased by the same influence. The old hatred existing between Denmark and Norway has been lessened. There is a new relationship between Boer and British leaders in the Cape Colony. Many more such things, could Be chronicled. But that is' enough, for that is evidence, which no one can deny. And that is only the beginning.