THE DECAY OF CHURCHGOING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13874, 7 October 1908, Page 4

THE DECAY OF CHURCHGOING.

.. Sir,—l have read in your columns Wii Avl time to timo letters discussing Mlii on !°*! the cause of the empty churches of to-dav '• seems to mo that . the cause of the .L'churches and - apparent indifference of W ft\l people in general to all things reliriouV t&V more than anywhere else with the tfeofcsS*M teachers. The world is sadly in n«3 - } great teachers—men or women who ara fili-i W with a great and intense love toward S V-- ' ing', humanity. . We need teachers iS&Bm speak and teach, from within -their own ings, and full, conscious, and abiding Sli2/- ' • ; tion of tnat other world of immortality • »iv? many teachers of psychology speak about . ' soul only ~ from .what they have read. hi ' ' ' what they have been told, from education 01 in its usually accepted sense—from intrlW 1 ■ and the mental plane. Such teachers j£' nothing but cold dead technicalities, 1' mtellectualisms, that will never awaken snX Intellect and education have their place in tl7" 5 world, but from more school education alone" 11 I and ail the scholarly study possible, not one * . ray of light will ever come to starving V hearts and longing aspirations. In tcacher, $¥$ of those higher planes the soul and spirit should guide the intellect, not the inteW v" the soul. The intellect should bo a ton! ' ' only, for the soul to use. .Modern teachers? have no soul illumination; the higher life ; tho life which soars beyond intellect and the : ; grave, is not ail acquisition to bo obtained --iS? from tho study of books and conventional!-' ties; it is a realisation within one's cwh ..being, and until ministers and teachers havo :i this wondorous realisation only through their I own higher natures they cannot evoke this realisation or consciousness in their coneregations. i - And until they . can cvoko 4pilS consciousness in hungry hearts, churches will v A" remain empty. Before wo can awaken others, we must first awaken ourselves. Before " wo can carry the weak, we must be strong /V ' Tho teachers tho world starves for to-day-V. aro thoso who speak from within. V. > Student of Psychology.' • S —Permit me to roply shortly to "Bible Student's" letter re the above. It is evi- * ? ; dent from that letter that tho keynote of " v "Bible Student's" faith is fear, "the dark' s '' ; I and dreadful day of the Lord,", etc., and it' | is this clement of fear and dread supers«ifpi® J tion > that enslaves those who, unable"or#?® afraid to think for themselves, employ the" 1 I clergy to think 'for them. That the ■ clergy are unable to satisfy spiritual hunger is' a v ' -' very ' evident fact, yet they aro undeserving of tho epithets " Bible Student" applies' to "Vj"- ■ them, and such application shows a lament." *' " able lack of grace in a student of a Bodfc"®K'J he styles as "the very true and infallible'•'t 'j? Word of God." Is it not rather • that the '. V churches are empty because men and women • in this ago of enlightenment decline to b'elievo that God wrote, spoke, or threatened"' 1 anyone at any time, arid thus are enabled to 1P ■ throw off the chains that : havo hitherto wK' bound them to the chariot - wheels of the rlChurch whoso teaching is based on a garbled : interpretation of that compilation of Jewish ;v, "'y records called the Bible? I fear that "Bible Student" is as one of those referred to inii | Timothy ii.,' ever learning, yot never able'. & to como .to a knowledge of the Truth." ' • 1 ] W. T. Raymond. ' v ;• . - ••' : i&iW