CHURCH NEWS AND NOTES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10760, 6 May 1911, Page 4 (Supplement)

CHURCH NEWS AND NOTES.

THE QUESTION

Were the whole world good as you — not an atom better — Were it just as pure and true, Just as pure and true as you ; Just as strong in faith and works; Just as free from crafty quirks; All extortion, all deceit; Schemes its neighbour to defeat; Schemes its neighbours to defraud; Schemes some culprit to applaud— Would this world be better? If this whole world followed you—followed to the letter — Would it be a nobler world, All deceit and falsehood hurled From it altogether; Malice, selfishness and lust Banished from beneath the crust Covering human hearts from view— Tell me, if it followed you, Would the world be better? PRAYER. O Lord! fulfil Thy gracious promises, we beseech Thee, in which we sometimes steadfastly, and often tremblingly and doubtfully, do believe, and work in us the willing and doing according to Thy own good pleasure. And may we hold forth the word of life, and be. truly lights in the world. We thank Thee that Thou dost enlighten those that come to Thee. May we not hide our lights, nor be unfaithful to our profession, nor deny our professions by our conduct, but may we be indeed kindled by Jesus, and the light that is in us be evidently a spark from Him, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. ITEMS. The Rev. H. S. Woollcombe, travelling secretary of the Church of England Men's Society, whose health broke down at the commencement of his Indian mission, has been ordered home to England for six months, as he is too much prostrated to proceed' with his mission. The King has given to the University of Oxford permission to dedicate to his Majesty a special prayer-book for his coronation. This volume, which will be known, as the Coronation Prayer-book, will be printed in red and black, froni new type, specially designed initials being introduced. : Oxford India paper will be employed. "The most interesting movement in Scotland," said Rev. Professor Maeintyre, of St. Audrew's College, Sydney, who has just returned from a holiday trip to England and the Continent, "is at present that for union between the two great Presbyterian Churches—the Church of Scotland aiid the United Free Church" of Scotland. Committees of both Churches liave been conferring for two years past. Agreement has been arrived at on the main principles of both-Churches/with the exception of the question of the relation between Church aiid'-State. - The Church of Scotland is willing to> seek a large measure of-spiritual freedom, and .to satisfy the members of the United Church ; but. on the other hand it is sought to retainthe State connection and the teinds on ecclesiastic endowments. The difficulty will be to harmonise spiritual freedom and State connection.

The British Weekly of February 16 states: The Rev. R. S. Gray, for tha past eight yea rs pastor of the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church, Christ-church, New Zealand, and for six .years of that period the energetic and efficient secretary of the Baptist Union of New Zealand, is due to arrive in London about March 20. Mr Gray has been appointed to represent tlie Baptists of tne Do-

minion at the Pnn-Baptisir Congress at Philadelphia in July. While in America Mr Gray will make a special study of the prohibition movement, which he has championed in his own land. It was hoped that he might be able to visit the mission stations estnblished by the New Zealand Baptists in East Bengal, bub this part of the projected tour has had to be cut out. He will pass through

Palestine and the Continent on liis way to London.

Dr Dixon, of Chicago, who has been preaching at the Metropolitan Tabernacle during the last two months, was 011 March 14 unanimously invited to the pastorate at a' large and enthusiastic church meeting. Dr Dixon is a striking personality above six feet in height. Once when he met Charles H. Spurgeon, the great preacher, who was also a great humorist, looked up and down the man who towered above him, and then remarked: "I knew they carried things to great lengths in America, but " Dr Dixon, who has been minister for some years at tlie-3loody Church at Chicago, is an evangelical who clings tenaciously to the "old paths." His preaching has attracted large attendances at the Tabernacle, and the invitation to him is 1 given with the hearty concurrence of the whole congregation. Dr Dixon's acceptance of the pastorate is confidently anticipated. The expectation is that he will carry on an evangelistic ministry. Teaching centres, it is held, are plentiful in South London, but there are none too many evangelistic centres, and as such the Tabernacle has a fine field of usefulness before it. —Christian "World. Dr Adolf Harnack's recent visit to London was short and hurried. On the Sunday he and Dr Spiecker were in- ; troduced to the King at Buckingham \ Palace by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The King assured the German delegates that he considered it his duty to follow in his father's footsteps as a peacemaker, and consequently would support every endeavor to promote peace i and goodwill among the nations. Before their audience the Primate, the great German scholar, and Dr Spiecker worshipped with the Royal Family in the Palace Chapel. One of the hymns was '"Lord of our Life and God of our Salvation," and its closing line, "Grant peace on earth, and, after we have striven, peace in Thy_heaven," seemed peculiarly appropriate to the peace errand which brought the two distinguished Germans to England. The Primate told the meeting at which Dr Harnack spoke that » "nothing could have been more hearty and nothing could have been more reciprocal than the welcome they received at the King's hands." Dr Aked had an overflowing congregation to hear his ultimatum to the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, New York, on March 5. His hearers were pretty well shaken, for New York is not accustomed to the spectacle of a ' £2400 preacher announcing in a church with John D. Rockefeller behind it that he had not been given a big enough sphere for his activities. Dr Aked has not yet definitely decided to accept the invitation to the pastorate of the first Congregational Church in San Francisco, but in his pulpit statement he left little doubt that he will obey the call of the Pacific Coast. His disappointment at the cliurch's lack of enterprise was apparent in every word he uttered. He said: "I can discover —it almost breaks my heart to say it —reasons why I should go, butjnone why I should remain on. I did not come from England i to be the minister of a small community of Baptists meeting in such a building as this. I believe yon are ready for vast enterprises, but T fear now that these enterprises are of such stuff as dreams are made of. The span of human life is short;, my years are passing, and I cannot afford to wait. I have work to do in the world—if not here, elsewhere. I owe something to my own past. I did work in Liverpool and for England which makes my ministry here look pitifully small: I owe something ' to the men and women in England who loved me when to tens of thousands of Free Churchmen in England it looked as though I were deserting them in the hour of their need. Perhaps the failure of the projects on which our minds have been set is the expression of God's disapproval of my action, but He is my witness that I believed the best work of my life would be done beneath the American flag. I could give myself to a great work with deathless passion, but such work doesn't seem possible in this church. So I ask: Must I hear in the 'call' to Pacific Coast God's voice bidding me cease unavailing regrets?"