ST. PAUL'§ CHURCH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21249, 1 August 1932, Page 11

ST. PAUL'§ CHURCH

NINETY-FIRST ANNIVERSARY CONCLUSION OF CELEBRATIONS The week of observances in celebration of the 91st birthday of St. Paul's Parish, the oldest in Auckland, concluded yesterday. The preacher at the morning service was Bishop Anderson. At evensong; Archbishop Averill preached to a largo congregation, and birthday gifts in reduction of the church debt were offered upon the altar. Tbo archbishop, after congratulating the vicar, church officers an d parishioners upon the anniversary, said they were doubtless looking forward to the centenary of the motlier church of Auckland. In the interim many changes were sure to take place, and he hoped that before the 100 th birthday of St. Paul's arrived, the beautiful parish church would be seen in its completed state. An occasion, like the present was ft suitable one for remembering the purpose for which churches existed, he said. They existed because man's religious instinct was universal and demanded that places should be set apart for the worship of God and the offering of spiritual sacrifices to heaven. The religious instinct was natural to the normal man, but, unfortunately, many people had ceased to be normal. There was a certain amount of active opposition to religion and a great deal of deadly indifference, even on the part of people living upon the fringe of Christianity. Such people bad adopted a diffused kind of universalism, a belief that man was somehow naturally immortal and that the good God would not be hard on anyone. This was one of the greatest possible fallacies and was no part of Christian doctrine. The teaching of Jesus and the apostles clearly was that eternal life was to be attained only by incorporation in I the living Christ.