SUNDAY OBSERVANCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 5, 4 December 1928, Page 7

SUNDAY OBSERVANCE.

ARCHBISHOP’S STRIKING ADDRESS.

Per Press Association. HASTINGS, Dec. 3. Archbishop Averill, speaking >at the Napier cathedral on Sunday evening on the question of Sunday observance, said that there was a great outcry for a reduction of religious obligations, but the sacred claims of the Lord’s Day could not be minimised or impressed too strongly. “Instead of cutting down a man’s indebtedness to God, the Church these days needs to emphasise the need of sacrifice for the sake of witness and example.” Dr. Averill said he believed that the Church was called to face fundamental questions and inquire whether devotion and pharisaic scrupulosity in respect of matters of secondary importance had not weakened the witness in the world in respect of the things that really mattered; whether faith had not suffered at the hands of theologians and whether God was not calling us to be exponents of a simpler, less complex, less overweighted, less narrow exposition of the everlasting Gospel, which seemed to decrease in favour as it increased in stereotyped credal and dogmatic statements. Alienation from God was shown in what was called our secular civilisation. It was useless for the Church to deplore the evils of society, the weakening of morals and the slow drift from institutional religion. These constituted a challenge tp the Church to redeem the times; because the days were evil to scrutinise its methods, and to put its own house in order. To the man in the street, the Church was too greatly occupied with trifles and concerned with sectarian differences, and he believed the Church was more concerned with orthodox dogma than life, and more with the future than the present. There was a danger of confusing the Lord’s Day with the Jewish Sabbath. The real recreation of body and mind came within the limits of proper Sunday observance. It was not the function of the Church to 'lay down rules regarding the minimum of religious ob. servance, but to impress on all and sundry the sacred claims of the Lord’s Day, which was not our own to spend in selfish pleasure but a day for Christian worship. The world, and even some Christians, wanted religion without oro.ss or sacrifice. If the Church was to help the world, its message must not ponder the world’s weakness, but call to real sacrifice. Only when the world saw the real meaning of sacrifice in the lives of professing Christians would it see Christ Himself.