THE CHURCHES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXX, Issue 14977, 24 April 1909, Page 6

THE CHURCHES.

Bishop Tucker, who has just returned to London from a visit to Naesa, at the south end of the Victoria Nyanza, reports that he is about to start en a two months' journey through Busoga to tho Bukedi, Teso, and Turkana countries, which lie to the north-east of Uganda and extend to the borders of Abyssinia, and in which he believes is the most pressing need for extension.

Tho two hundredth anniversary of the first regular Church of England service hold in what is now the Dominion of Canada is to be celebrated in the autumn of 1910 in Nova. Scotia. The. service was held at Annapolis Royal—the old Port Royal, re-named in honour of Queen Anne'when the fortress was captured from the French in 1710, nearlv half a century before Canada proper, up the St Lawrence Valley came into British hands through Wolfe's victory at Quebec.

The Executive Committee of the English Church Pageant has decided that any profits arising out of the pageant at Fulham Palace next June shall be divided between the Church Missionary Society, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the Bishop of London's Fund, the Central Church Committee for Defence and Instruction, and other organisations. An important addition has been made to the programme by the inclusion of a scene following immediately upon the coronation of Edward Vl.,' representing Latimer preaching at St Paul's Cross.

The Rev F. B. Meyer left London on March 17 on*a six months' mission tour of the Near and the Far East, He will spend about a month in Turkey and Asia Minor, holding a series of meetings and conferences for missionaries and' others at various centres, including Philippopolis, Constantinople and Smyrna. A second, month will bo given to the Maky Settlements, and then MiMeyer will go on to China, which is the'main'objective of his tour. He will, visit China, not to hold general missions, but as the representative of the Council of tlie Keswick Convention to the missionaries of the different societic| at work there. Mr Meyer hopes to meet and address about 1200 missionaries. The homeward journey, beginning on September 5, will be by the Trans-Siberian railway.

A reference by Bishop Gore at Oxford recently to the Briton's , desire even at the top of tho Alps to have "sung matins at eleven " evoked roars of applause, says 'tho " Times/' Britons had to learn, said the Bishop, that the Christian religion \d id not consist in singing matins at eleven, but in the historic,, creeds, the Bible, the episcopate, tho ministry and the Sacraments —these were the real catholic elements of Christianity. Bishop Gore spoke with prophetic tiro of the difficulty of moving the-enthusiasm of the Anglican Church. "Itis a tough old thing," ho said. He closed with a wonderful appeal to his hearers: " See to it that the dull, flat, conservative forces of tho Church of England do not damp your enthusiasm or thwart tho purposes of the Spirit- of God."

At the opening ceremony of the now Church schools for girls and infants in the parish of St Luke, Chelsea, last month, the Bishop of London, in the course of an address, contended that they could not have a vague unsubstantial religion for a child, for children were the most dogmatic beings in the world. The Church Catechism was to him simple Bible* teaching. Noue could say that the Church of England had not generously hacked up her opinions. She had spent money on the Kchools at the rate of £IO,OOO a week for ninety years. Since 1902 in the London diocese alone she had expended £250.000 in the building and repair of schools. Ho believed that the British nation was thoroughly just, and would, when the great settlement came t take those facts into consideration. No one was aggrieved by the existence of such schools as those which were now being opened; for children whose parents did hot like religious had provision available all over London. He recognised the difficulty of the present position in single school areas. In Canada, in Germany and in Scotland there was no difficulty as a result of. education 'being upon a denominational basis.

The Rev A. Nairnc, Professor of Hebrew at King's College, London, gave the first ol two lectures on "The Teaching of tho Bible, to Children" te a large audience in the theatre of the college last month. He said that unless they recognised that'tho Old Testament wee not an infallible oracle for every kind of purpose, nor yet even in its proper sphere a collection of answers aich complete in itself, they would never free themselves from its moral difficulties. But these disappeared when they understood that the purpose of the Old Testament wss solvation and that its teaching must be taken as a whole, and that whole itself was completed by tho New Testament. While the Patriarchs stood on the borders of history, Moses was historical, and at this stage they might expect more thoughtful attention to be tiaW by somewhat older pupils. The bnllriishe.-- would he lightly passed over, tho plagues hardly mentioned. But, es St Stephen taught, the important points would be the training of Moses in Egypt, then in the Wilderness, where the Revelation of Jehovah came to him. and then the Exodus itself. The cros»iiig of the Rod Sea was an actual occurrence, though the Red Sea was Hot that which was so called nowadays, but was a shallow lake, covered by reeds. Tho idea of" Redemption was also presented in its early simplicity. Tho giving of the law followed next, and here tho lecturer pointed out that the Ten Commandments were comparatively of little use to us until yxo finally inter-

preted them by the Sermon on th* .Mount. The Right Rev William Boyd Carpen* ter, Bishop of Ripon, is emphatically one of the " preaching prelates." Hia brilliant versatility is marked by big distinction not only as a popular dig* nitary of the Church of England, but by his achievements in tho different capacities of author, lecturer, historian., platform • orator and ecclesiastical statesman. But, after all, his rests pre-eminently on his eloquence as a preacher. So writes one who haa interviewed the Bishop for the " Homii letic Review." "Amongst my. chief convictions," said the Bishop, "-is this* in the first place, that it is profoundly, to be regretted that, through -th» strenuousness of this age, counties* preachers are deprived of. adequate op* portunities for the special preparation which is, before all things, constantly needed. My own idea of the proper course of preparation is that it inevK tably varies with the subjects chosen for homiletic purposes. My own modo of proceeding, is not necessarily at ono time what it is at some other., I consider that two all-important elements to be kept steadily in view in the con* struction of a sermon are interest and variety. It may be asked how those; two elements can best be sustained, hi the first place, the preacher may impart interest to a great extent by the help of facts gathered from his own individual experience, while he may, of course, profit immensely by what he may learn from the expen« ence of others. In the next place, th« nature of the subject chosen will have much to do -with shaping the course of thought during the process of .preparation of a particular discourse. Til is obvious that each subject will possess an inherent interest of its own, and.it is the business of the preacher in his study to grasp this essential interest involved in' the topic he has selected, according to .the suggestions of the text or', passage." "Do you attach any great imi>ortance to tho particular length of a sermon?" was a query ad« dressed to the Bishop at this point. " When one reflects on all cases," ro« plied Dr Boyd Carpenter, "a true sermon may be accounted to 7 be always really long, whether- it appears to be so or not. Sometimes the shortest discourse has really been a very long one. For though it comes fully created ire apparent brevity, yet it must hav« been the result o'f a long unconscious preparation and the accumulation of a great amount ; of thought foenssed at that moment.; I am free to say that the ideal which) I have kept before my mind, and which I. have pressed constantly on my own students, has been that which is so weli expressed by Jean Paul Riehter wheik ho" says, " Never read till you have thought yourself hungry, and never write" till you have read yourself full. Translating this dictum into another form, it might be interpreted thus; Think out every subject for yourself. Try to discover and to comprehend clearly the real signification ok. the words on which you are going to com; ment, so as to secure a clear oi 'the subject on which you are purposing to read for information. I would enforce this plan of procedure in the study because only by subjecting him* self to such a process does a preache* become competent, to read intellectually on the topic which he has selected for consideration with a view to the construction of a sermon. Thenlwoula say to the preacher that he should no* attempt to write out any of the notes of his sermon until he has gone dih; gently through, these'two processes o» reflection first and of study afteN wards."