CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOUR

Northern Advocate, 19 July 1935, Page 8

CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOUR

ANNUAL RALLY The annual rally of the North Auckland Christian Endeavour Union was held in the Presbyterian Church buildings yesterday evening. The Rev. R. G. Bycroft, president of the union, presided over an enthusiastic gathering. The rally commenced with a tea, at which about 60 members were present from the various societies in the Whangarei district. The speaker for the occasion was Mr. Kenneth Melvin, Dominion president of the Chiistian Endeavour movement. Mr. Melvin, who is well known as an orator, having won the Bledisloe gold medal for oratory a few years ago, kept the interest of the audience throughout the meeting.

After tea, instead of the usual reports from the societies represented, an interesting and profitable time was spent in discussing various problems which were engaging the attention of several of the leaders present. As Dominion president. Mr. Melvin was able to help, to some extent, in solving these difficulties. The Sunday school hall was prettily decorated with Christian Endeavour colours in blue and gold streamers, while bowls of arum lilies were placed on the long tables.

The church was comfortably full for the inspirational meeting, during which the Rev. Wm. Elliott, Rev. J. Sands, Pastor Langley and Rev. R. G. Bycroft took part in the service of worship. A feature of Christian Endeavour rallies is the roll-call. This was responded to by a smaller number of societies than usual, but with no diminution of enthusiasm, those represented being the Baptist seniors and juniors, Maungakaramea and Otaika. Greetings were sent by the Albertland society. Miss D. Parkes conducted a brief but bright session of chorus-singing, when old and new favuorites, such as “In my heart there rings a melody,” “That will be glory for me,” and “By and bye well see the King,” were sung to the organ accompaniment played by Mr. S. B. Dunn. The World’s. Need. Mr. Melvin said the Christian Endeavour movement was numerically the largest youth organisation in the world today. Five million young people were marching forward with the light of God. in their faces, under the banner of the Christian Endeavour movement. In spite of this they could net yet say with the seer “The king- ! doms of the earth are the kingdoms of Our God/’ The thing that was causing most concern in the Christian Endeavour movement, in common with other departments of Christ’s Church, was absenteeism. Absenteeism within the- church showed a waning interest in things spiritual, but those who would lose heart should read history. The growing carelessness and indifference apparent today were not a new thing, but something recurring in different periods of history. Communism without the church was in the modern world the only serious competitor to Christianity, but its militant atheism, and the new creed of immediate success and material efficiency, forced the church to take cognisance of the facts. With regard to unemployment, the situation was desperate. There was an urgent demand that Christ’s Church should be awake. Now, in the tenth year of depression, we were still paying the price of winning the war. All restraint and discipline had been removed and materialism was rife in the pursuit of pleasure and “this worldliness.”

Christian Endeavour'stood in urgent' need cf revival, an inflow of the power cf the divine afflatus, a renewed earnestness and zeal. Pure religion and undefiled should, be the Endeavour's aim. In’ this need of revival there was the social urgency, the international urgency and the individual urgency. Regarding internationalism’s great need, Mr. Melvin cited the case of Mussolini’s determined stand against Abyssinia, where the desire for selfaggrandisement might lead to war between nations. The parrot cry. “No politics in ‘the pulpit’’ always worked cut to be “No Christianity in politics.” The full implication of Christianity was with the individual. If the Christian conscience was to become operative it must be through revival. The supreme need of the individual and cf the- nations was the rebirth through the touch of the divine spirit, so that men might be constrained to be saved.