CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 140, 15 June 1908, Page 5

CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY.

- CONFIRMATION SERVICE. Yesterday morning at the Church of the' Nativity, His Lordship, Bishop Julius, of Christchurch, administered the rite of confirmation to between 50 and 60 candidates, there being a large congregation present. After the order of confirmation had been gone through according to the usual rites, the Bishop preached on the significance of Trinity Sunday, taking this as his subject in preference to the usual address to the confirmees. The mystery of the Trinity, he explained, was one of those subjects which .the intellect failed to grasp, and it was left to the intuitive faculties to realise. His Lordship illustrated the difference between the intellect and the intuitive faculties by referference to the story of the two disciples in the New Testament, who, hearing that Our Lord had gone out of the sepulchure where he had been placed after his crucifiction, ran to the sepulchere "and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and saw and believed." The "other disciple" corresponded to imaginative and intuitive faculties, which were frequently able to grasp a great truth long before the plodding intellect could understand it. Intellect lagged behind, and all our thinking, and analysis and pulling to pieces of a divine truth would only enable us to Say "I think," while the intuition, which could see and comprehend things out of reach of the intellect enabled us to say "I know." Children had wonderful intuitive powers, and were frequently able to understand, and realise things, that the intellect of their fathers and grandfathers failed to grasp. One of the great reasons why Trinity Sunday should appeal to us, was that it lifted us above ourselves, and taught us to forget our own small worries—to leave ourselves out of it for a while, and to think about God and things far removed from this world. In the afternoon the Bishop held a children's service, and again in the evening he preached to a full church from the text "The fashion of this world passeth away," (1 Cor. 7 31). He Referred to the ever changing fashions of the people, making humorous reference to th~e changes in dress. There were changing fashions in morals, and in the methods of ordering our life, and changing fashions in /religion. It used to be the fashion to go to church, now it was fashionable to stay | away. Formerly it was the fashion to observe the Lord's Day, now it was the fashion to ignore itf People meant no harm. They were following the fashion, that was all! Life was largely ordered) by fashion. We did not do what we would like, but ordered our movements by what others thought should be done. No matter what set we occupied in social life it was the same', we were bound by the decrees of fashion. But our life should be ordered, not by the rules of any class, but by Him who had Redeemed us. We were too much given to follow the decrees of fashion, and to neglect higher things. It was all very well to prate, about the Empire, and the Flag, and to fire off our popguns, and say what we would do to preserve the Empire, but we had to consider whether the Empire was going to be worth preserving. The preacher closed with an appeal to his hearers, to order their lives not so much in accordance with fashion's decrees, but in such a manner as not to neglect their higher interests. •