CHURCH ATTENDANCE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23751, 3 September 1940, Page 10

CHURCH ATTENDANCE

.Sir, —In Friday's Hkrald the Bishop of Aotearoa, the lit. Boy. F. A. Bennett, is reported as Laving stated that only 3 per cent of the people of New Zealand attend divine service. That there is on the part of many folk in this country a lamentable indifference to "those things that matter most in life" cannot he denied. The situation is by no means as bad, however, as tho bishop would lead ns to believe. The actual figures are not easy to arrive at, but it can be said with certainty that the people who attend divine service represent a far greater portion of the community than 3 per cent. Take the Presbyterians alone. Tlie Official Year Book for 1940 gives the population of New Zealand as a little over one and a-half millions. The Presbyterian Blue Book for 1939 discloses that some 82,000 people of that denomination are in regular attendance. almost 6 per cent of the total population. One would imagine that the number of .Anglicans who attend is not far short of that figure, to say nothing of the Roman Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, Salvationists, Plymouth Brethren and several smaller sects. Thirty per cent would probably be too generous an • estimate, but it would certainly be nearer the facts than the 3 per cent qnoted by the bishop. His Lordship is right, however,, in speaking in strong terms of the carelessness of many people in the matter of public worship, and a revival of church attendance is greatly *to be desired. We are out to win the war, and we believe that in so doing we are safeguarding our national heritage of freedom and justice against the peril that threatens from without. Surely we ought to be concerned also to preserve the foundation on which that heritage rests, namely, a due recognition or God and obedience to His will. PbxsbytJsb.