CALL TO RELIGION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22818, 27 August 1937, Page 13

CALL TO RELIGION

NEED OF THE TIMES BISHOP KEMPTHORNE'S VIEW IMPORTANCE TO COMMUNITY Echoing tlio recent message of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. J. A. Kempthorne, who was until recently Bishop of Lichfield, stressed the- importance of fi recall to religion in a sermon delivered during a service at St. Mary's Cathedral last evening. Bishop Kempthorne, who arrived in Auckland by the Niagara from Suva on Monday, said that no one could doubt that the Primate's message was most timely. "Wo live in very difficult times," Dr. Kempthorne stated. "We are in what is undoubtedly a, sick world and, although we in the British Empire have much to be thankful for, it cannot be said that there is no very great need of God. Must Always Come First "We have increased our knowledge; but have wo increased our knowledge of God? There is a call for financial and commercial reform; it may make us more prosperous, but it cannot make our lives richer without God. Wo want to improve our political machinery, but is it not more important to improve the men who are working it? We need Him for that." Dr. Kempthorne said he hastened to add that the recall should not be thought timely simply because it might help people to religion, which in its turn would hasten them to greater prosperity and peace in the life of the nations. They could not make a convenience of God. Ho must always come first. Address ol Welcome Presented After warning the congregation against false religions and inaccurate conceptions of God, he said that if they were to bo recalled to true religion they had to think more and more of Christ and His revelation of the love of God, who claimed every part of life as his own. The Archbishop of York had said that man seemed to need education more than he needed conversion, political progress and reform more than redemption, and peace and prosperity more than eternal life. During the service Bishop Kempthorne was presented with an address of welcome by the Primate of New Zealand, Archbishop Averill. In it reference was made to the close historical and personal associations which bound the see of Lichfield to the province of tlio church in New Zealand, the pioneering work of Bishop Selwyn being stressed. It was stated that the church in the Dominion was deeply grateful to Bishop Kempthorne's visit, supplementing as it did the links between it and the see of Lichfield. a