FILM IN A CHURCH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20979, 16 September 1931, Page 12

FILM IN A CHURCH.

" UNCLE TOM'S CABIN." SERMON IN A PICTURE. SYDNEY PASTOR'S EXPERIMENT. [from our own CI) it respondent.] SYDNEY, Sept. 10. With his slave whip lashing silently in the air, Simon Legrec went blustering to his doom in the dim interior of the 70-year-old Balmain Congregational Church, Sydney, on Sunday night last. Eliza leaped to her freedom over frozen blocks of ice, and all tlie time a moving picture projector whirred above the solemn music of the church organ. The vast congregation, which overflowed from tlie building, was transported to the cotton fields of tho southern States of America. It was a sermon in moving pictures. Only once before had moving pictures been shown in a Sydney church, and tho man responsible for tho latest screening, Rev. T. B. Roseby, expressed himself as highly satisfied with the innovation. Now and again involuntary gusts of laughter greeted the antics of Topsv, but otherwise tho atmosphere of dignity and worship was preserved throughout. And there were certainly many people in the congregation who had not been inside a church for years

Mr. Roseby said that he did not intend to make a habit of converting his church into a film house, but in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" he believed he had obtained a film of a deeply religious character. He said he was not opposed to films, and lie did not think they had done any harm, taking them all round. Some of them had a distinct educational value, and he believed that they should all be kept, to the highest educational and moral standard. Mr. Roseby prefaced (he screening with a short address on the emancipation of the American slaves. That emancipation, he said, had been part of the great religious movement for freedom of thought that had its origin in tho march of the children of Israel to the Promised Land. Other ministers have expressed regret that there are few films suitable for screening in churches. They l-ecognise the value of such a film as "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and it is recalled that the last time a film was shown in a Sydney church it was a great success. It, too, was shown at a Congregational Church, and tlie title was "Boy of -Mine." One member of the audience became converted on tho spot, and was now a wellknown deacon of the church. Ife had never forgotten the lesson which the picture taught him. It had made an everlasting impression on his mind. If there were more such pictures the churches would gladly show them.