SATIRE IN THE PULPIT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21153, 9 April 1932, Page 3 (Supplement)

SATIRE IN THE PULPIT.

MODERN IDEAS OF HEAVEN. PREACHER'S FORCIBLE PHRASES. Gentle laughter rippled through the congregation in the King's Weigh House Church, Dnke Street, Grosvenor Square, London, on a recent Sunday morning, when Dr. W. E. Orchard satirised some modern ideas of Heaven. Dr. Orchard is a preacher giffpd with a sense of humour, says Mr. James Dunn in a London newspaper. He can sparkle with epigrams, thrill with eloquent passages, and disturb with biting phrases. A handsome man, with the face of a scholar and the jaw of a fighter, he makes an impressive figure in the pulpit ; a preacher dressed entirely in black, standing before a carved crucifix. He preaches with voice and hands, graceful hands that are never still. The theme of Dr. Orchard's sermon was the charge of worldliness made against the Christian religion, a charge sharpened by the doctrine that the idea of Heaven was only pure illusion, a sheer deception to keep the poor quiet by the promise of a good time hereafter. " The promise of mansions in the sky was cast out by the provision of cottages on earth, and celestial cities were replaced by garden suburbs," said Dr. Orchard. He maintained that the conception of Heaven was beyond human imagination, " though the promise in the Book of Revelations of golden streets, gates of pearl, and walls of precious stone may have ex-' cited the cupidity of somo collectors on earth. " Our Lord's disquieting negative that there were no marriages nor giving in marriage in Heaven ought to be attractive to this generation," the preacher remarked, while the congregation tittered. " Many people's idea of Heaven is one of a blank existence, a state of mental stagnation. " But," Dr. Orchard declared, his hands eloquent in gesture, his voice vibrating with sincerity, " the other life is entirely dependent on how this life is lived. As a man sows so shall he reap. God is not mocked. It is impossible to make any sense out of this life without an assurance of somo life to come."