TENDENCY FOR SECTS TO HEAL DIFFERENCES

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6993, 20 August 1929, Page 7

TENDENCY FOR SECTS TO HEAL DIFFERENCES

DAY OF UNITING. “The time has long since gone when the churches should be lighting amongst themselves. Wc have other and bigger things to think about," said the Rev. J. Ernest Parsons, when extending the congratulations of the Palmerston North Council of Christian Congregations to St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church last evening on the occasion ‘of the church’s fiftieth

anniversary. “The time has come to consider how wc can spend our energies best in helping forward the Kingdom of God and not alone our own denomination," continued Mr. Parsons. “I am oldfashioned enough to believe 'that, the Christian church in this town is doing the best community service of any organisation. When we remember that the whole of the religious education of our children is left entirely to the Church, and that upon religious education depends the welfare of the community, it will be seen that we n>e setting first things first. Mr. Parsons also referred to the oncouraging tendency for union which was apparent between various denominations at the present day. Already the two great divisions of the church in Scotland, the Free and the Established, had united, while next year the three, great branches of the Methodist Church in England the Wesleyans, the Primitive Methodists, and the United Methodists, would combine. There had also been some talk of congregationalists and Baptists coming together into one organisation. All these unions pointed to a reconciliation of the differences between various denomiaations.