THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17914, 17 October 1921, Page 6

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.

PRESENT-DAY STANDARD.

MORE POSITIVE RELIGION.

" Can a man be a Christian in New Zealand?" was a question asked by the Rev. W. Bullock, organising secretary to the Church of England Men's Society, in a sermon at St. Paul's Church last evening.

J The preacher referred to the difficulty j of a man in New Zealand understanding what the Christian life was, because there were so many Christian voices calling different lunes. They heard one man saying, something about horse-racing to-day and another man delivered a different message to-morrow. It wius the same with dancing and the theatre. What was the j plain man to think? What was he to do I when he became a Christian? It seemed j difficult for him to know. Loyalty to j Christ was the main thing, and He would j tell a man what he was to do under all circumstances. The Church used to govern the everyday conduct of men in the Middle Ages. After the Reformation Puritanism had its own standard of morals. These, including its Sabbatarian rules, had been flung overboard by practically every Church calling itself Christian. We were now returning to a more positive than negative religion and the Church tried to tell the plain man what to do and not merely what not to do which was not enough. The whole thing, Mr. Bullock said, summed itself up into loyaltv to a personality rather than a fixed code of morals. If we were loyal to Christ we had no tune for the petty meannesses I mat we called sins. Nature abhorred a j vacuum and so did the go,,] 0 man. If I in ..-art was not 1,!!, " i "'»'" one thing it I w'th lnvw w th another. » %ve filled it I^SX^S ri^ her6wouJdbeno