STUDENTS' SUNDAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19389, 26 July 1926, Page 12

STUDENTS' SUNDAY.

SPECIAL SERVICES HELD. Special services were held throughout New Zealand yesterday in observance of the annual day of prayer of the New Zealand Student Christian Movement. The day is always kept in July because the day in February selected by the World's Student Christian Federation falls in the vacation and the supplementary day in October comes at the examination period. A gathering of about 80 students was addressed yesterday by the Rev. G. C. Cruickshank. In the evening the Rev. D. C. Herron conducted a service in St. David's Church. Mr. Herron took for his subject " Jesus as a Student," working from the text, "And the Jews marvelled saying: ' How knoweth this man letters having never learned.' "

"Although he was only a student of the village school and ruMer graduated Jesus won his way into The field of learning in which the Rabbi? only were experts," said Mr. Herron.

In this, their own domain, the Rabbis soon discovered that He was their Master; how His oft repeated question " Have you never read," must have rankled in their minds! Education was the acquiring of mental equipment to enable us to deal adequately with experiences along life's pathway—it was not undigested knowledge. Learning acquired must become part of our own thinking. Often men without the hall-mark of a university, yet with a keen sense of values, were respected as no pedagogue was. Christ trod the same path as students of to-day but with a different motive—the discovery of truth, not the passing of examinations, continued Mr. Herron. The culture of Jesus was not a veneer, but a part of His own life. Although a master of three languages, He did not parade His learning, but the nearer people approached Him the more they were impressed by His knowledge. He must have spent years in close study to hecome so familiar with the scriptures. He was such a master of His art that by means of homely illustrations He made Himself easily understood by the masses.