SUNDAY CIRCLE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15826, 26 July 1913, Page 7

SUNDAY CIRCLE.

DEVOTIONAL Supplication. 0 Thou who art the Resurrection and the Life, we thank Thee for all Thy servant who have gone beforo us with tfie sign 01 faith, ami who live in tho lull beauty ot Uhy presence, though for a little while we see tnem not. Wo bless Thee for every tender memory in our hearts of those who have entered within the -veil. We pray that with them we also may be partakers, through the infinite merits of Thy holy Passion, oi the high and heavenly Kingdom. Wo acknowledge the sacred consolation of the work Thou hast wrought in making on end of sin and death, and bringing life and immortality to light through the Gospel. We beseech Thee for faith and patience as we seek, surrounded by unseen witnesses, to run the race that is set belore us; and we plead Thy promises unto them that believe and endure, that we too may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in Thy eternal and everListing glory.—Amen.

Reading—John si. 11-27. Life has been denned as a " going to tho Father." _ It is quite clear that there must oomo & time in the history of all those who, livo this life, when they reach the Father. ... On this side we call that death. It means reaching the Father. It is not departure, it is arrival; not sleep, but waking. For lifo to those who live like Christ is not a funeral procession. It is a triumphal march to the Father. And

. . as wo watch a' lifo which is going to tlie Father, we cannot think of night, of gloom, of dusk and sunset. It i 6 life which is tho night, and Death the sunrise. "Pray moderately," says an old saint, "for the lives of Chriflt'6 people." Pray moderately. We may want them on our sido, he means, but Christ may need them on His. He has seen them a great way off, and asked the Father to make them come quickly.—Henry Drummond,

Meditation, THE PROBLEM OF DISTRIBUTION. The most important problem that still remains for solution in political economy is the problem of distribution. The problem of production 'has been worked out pretty completely and is understood, but not so tho problem as to how the goods available may .be equitably 'distributed. It has been said that if the available resources of our own nation wero equitably distributed they would suffice to raise the whole population above the poverty _ lino. It is not for clergymen, I am certain, to attempt to teach business men their business or economists their political economy, but it must be urged upon you constantly that somehow there is a Christian law of distribution, not yet discovered and not yet applied. The miracle of the feeding of the multitude—which is also a parable—has a very practical lesron for us to-day. What is the matter with our political life, our' social life, our economic life? We have not asked ourselves consistently. Is the existing order shaped according to the mind and purpose of Christ? Canon Masterman, M.A. Exhortation, against wholesale condemnation of the RICH. Do not condemn rich people wholesale just becausu they aro rich. The lato Mr Pierpont Morgan was undoubtedly a man who, ■ if ho accumulated vast weath, made a generous and enlightened use of it; he expended it in the oau6e of art, literature, philanthropy, and religion; he was a loyal and earnest member of the Protestant Episcopalian Church, and tho profession of his simple faith in the redeeming merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was the most inspiring and ennobling article of his will. Jesus Christ teaches not that riches ore sinful, but that they are perilous. They tend to freeze the springs of charity and sympathy. It is a matter of sad experience that persons who have been good Christians while they were comparatively poor, sometimes become less Christian in feeling and conduct -us they become rich. It is the simplo duty of tho rich to cast much into the treasury of God. For wealth is only too apt to engender selfishness and avarice; and these aro qualities which are fatal to the religious life, nay, fatal to the true nobility of human nature. It is not wealth that i 6 odious to God and man; it is wealth selfishly or even cruelly used and ruthlessly • hoarded or squandered in wasteful, wicked expenditure, or selfishly enioyed without a thought of the solemn responsibility laid by God upon the rich for tho care of the poor who are ever with them. It is not wealth, but the abuse of wealth, which excites impatient Socialistic sentiments in the minds and hearts of the working class. I bring no personal charge against anybody; I honour and admire all cheerful givers; but it is impossible to avoid the wish or tho prayer for more examples of splendid generosity; for there are no worse enemies of tho social system as°it now. exists than the few rich men who draw large incomes from their property iu great, cities, and make a wholly inadequate return, if indeed they make any return at all-, to the cities which yield them their affluence.—Bishop Wolldon.

METHODISM AND REV. G. JACKSON.

DR J. It MOULTON ON HIS COL-

LEAGUE.

The discussion concerning Rev. George Jackson's appointment to Didsbury College, which has produced a heresy hunt in _ tho Methodist Conference in Great Britain, was referred to at a gathering of Hartley Circuit. Alluding to tho work done at Didsbury College, Dr James H. Mculton mentioned a student whose presence thoro was owing to Mr Jackson's ministry in Edinburgh, and who in a fow months would bo 200 miles from a white face in West Africa. Ho and all tho other students they were sending out from the oollego to the homo and missionary work had not found their ardour for preaching the Gospel damped by tho things they had been taught at college. They were teaching their students first of all to preach the Gospel, and nothing but the Gospel. Thoro was no time in preaching to tacklo profound intellectual problems, or even to explain the complicated questions which arose when they asked how the human side of the Bible was affected by modern knowledge. But they had to teach the students how to answer tho new questions that ,thc age wag asking, and to answor them in a strictly modern way. Tho minister must bo at least as well equipped as the thoughtful young man who came to him with difficulties encountered among his comrades or in reading books. If they listened to his preaching every Sunday for a they would not hear any " new theology,' nor most assuredly would they hoar any if they listened to the distinguished preacher whom the Conference had appointed to be his colleague at Didsbury College. Methodism and " new theology" or Unitarianism simply oould nc± live together for an hour. If they were emphasising in these days the absolute reality of the manhood of Christ on earth and the perfect humanity of tho Bible, that was .perfectly consistent with holding Him to be very God and tho Biblo as truly Divino as their forefathers hold it to be. In closing, Dr Moulton expressed tho hopo that thoir friends who clung to tho older fashions would realise that thero was rooni for great variety of opinion within Methodism, and that tho older fashion and tho newer might live together on condition that both alike were faithful to the preaching of that message which had proved in tho past the power of God unto salvation. ABOUT PEOPLE. Two well-known American Congregational ministers—Rev. C. Thurston Chase, of Lynn, Mass., and Rev. H. E. Jackson, of Upper Montclair, N.J.—ltavo announced that they will marry only those who oomo to them with a physician's certificate of good health. In establishing this rule they have the support of tho Boston CongrogaIkmalist, which expresses tho "hope that the time is not far distant when all our ministers will do likewise "; but adds that "only a few havo had the courage to go further than tho law-makers havo cared to go in restricting marriage to thoso who aro physically fit to enter that relationship."

In the course of his address at Upper Holloway Baptist Church on a recent Sunday evening, which a crowded congregation thoroughly enjoyed, Mr Dan Crawford created much amusement by tho characteristic way in which he spoke of his marriage. " After 12 years in Central Africa," ho said, " I asked a lady to join mo in my work. Away in the wilds wo got married on two texts of Scripture—wo had nothing else to marry on. One was 'Abraham pitched his tent and built an altar.' Oh, I/ondon, London I You build your tent and pitch your altar-out of tho door! The

RELIGIOUS READING FOR THE HOME

other text -was 'My husband, my friend. Did you know that was in the Bib!c? Oh, it's grand when one and one make one." Mr Crawford confessed that he learned to pray only after he was married.

Professor G. A. Johnston Ross, now of Union Seminary, New York, was among the guests at the foundation-stone-laying at Cheshunt College, Cambridge. The resemblance of Professor Johnston Ross to Mr Rudyard Kipling grows more and more striking. Mr Ross was minister of the Presbyterian Church at Cambridge before he left England poorer of a really great preacher by his removal to America, and he found many old friends glad to welcome him back to the university town. Unfortunately Mr Ross is tied to Cambridge by the eenous illness of his only son, an undergraduate at the university, who ha 6 had to undergo two operations for appendicitis during the last few weeks. Mr Ross expected to remain in England until early August, but ho k not preaching during this visit.'

At the Metropoltan Tabernacle, London, Dr Dixon spoke of his day's work, when he conducted the operations of a mission ; party of some 60 members, organised by the Open-air Mission, at the Derby. He 6aid he could not but pray that the God of the nation would impress the hearts of our noble King and Queen, after tho experiences of Wednesday, never to go back to tho Derby Racecourse. He believed they ought to make that a prayer. He had heard, on good authority as it seemed, that tho King had no heart in it, and certainly his Christian wife and Queen had none; but the King felt doubtless that he ought to go, as he represented, as tho head of the nation, tho sporting as well as the Christian element. Tet it would be 6uch a testimony for the truth and for Christ if ho and she should be led to give it up. He was not speaking in disrespect of tho King and Queen—he honoured them for their Christian character,—but it seemed to him, as he looked into the faces of the people about the racecourse, that they did not really represent that crowd, He himself felt as if he were moving amid tho fumes of tho bottomless pit. Ho thought ho was never nearer Jie"J in his life. Tho place was the Mecca of the moral crooks of the world, for it was international It was the paradise of pickpockets. The Ho of the land made it possible for him to see, he supposed, 200,000 people at one time, and they were tho most unhappy-looking lot he ever saw. Outside the mission party he did not see a face which impressed him as having had any joy. Especially was that so with those who were feverishly heated with tho passion of gambling.

By the death of Dr Charles Augustus Brips. Professor of Theological Encyclopedia- and Symbolics at Union Theological 'New York, the United States loses a Biblical oritic aod progressive theologian who has greatly educated the religious thought of America. He wxs born in New York in 1841. and was trained for tho Presbyterian ministry in the Univoreity of Virfrmia, and then in tho Union Seminary. At' Berlin ho eruciicd wider Dorer and Rodiger. A four years' pastorate at Eosclle, New Jersey, was followed by tho Hebrew Professorship at Union Seminary, exchanged in 1891 for the cfciir of Biblical Theology, and this in turn for the chair ho hold at his death From 1880 to 1690 ho was one of the editors of-the Presbyterian Review. Scholarly, opeii-mmded. a lover of light and truth, suid fearlees, he drew the attention of the heresy-hunters, and in 1803 tho General Assembly suspended Mm, after an acquittal bv the Presbytery of New York. It .was the "Bobsrtson Smith" case of the States, exciting enormous interest, and the pouring out of floods of ink, furious denunciation and impassioned defence of the- iran and his positions. There were tho usual charges that in adopting and propagating the results of Biblical criticism he was denying inspiration and undermining fyith in the Bible. He left the Presbyterian'OhuTch in 1898 for tho Proteeiiint Episcopal Church- of America. Time and the spirit of tho aee were with him, and he lived to see his "heresies" so generally adopted that they ceased to excite more tan a few hopeless He published many valuable works, including a two-volume commentary on the Psalms. Tho Union Seminary all along remained faithful to Mm, amd after his suspension reconstituted itself on a nonsectarian basis. A great point of the opposition against him was that he conceded to Martineau and Newman as high a place in heaven as to Spurgeoai. FROM ALL SOURCES. This year the Presbyterian Church in' Ireland ,is celob-.ating *its tercentenary. Referring the. other day, at the General Assembly held at Belfnst, to this'interesting occasion, tho Right Rev. Henry- Montgomery, D.U., said that if there was ono Church on earth more than another which had reason for expressing profound a-nd abounding gratitude and praise to God for His outstanding mercies, that Church was tho Irish Presbyterian Church. , Through days of stress and strain their forefathers had, by the grace and blessing of God, clung with splendid tenacity to tho principles and practices of revealed religion. They had left them a noble and inspiring page of. history which had been preserved in many records, but which was also written in imperishable characters upon the heart of Irish Presbyterianism.

Tho result of the debate on Presbyterian Union in tho Scottish Assemblies has (says the Christian World) been foreseen for some time. There was no possibility of any decisive step toward union beijig taken this year, even although tho opposition on tlic part of the' mortc emphatic ivolontai'ics seemed to be losing strength. This was probably due to tic indisposition of Professor James Orr. His absence from more than one important moeting has been severely foil. The committees of tho two churches' had private conferences prior bo Tuesday's deliberations. At these conferences, it is a pretty open secret,' expression is much freer, and so they perform the useful function of the safety-valve. The Joint Committee has been a third time reappointed, and it will doubtless bo the last. Something elso is bound to happen next year. From now the constitution is the tiling.

Tho M'Cheync centenary celebrations in Ditndco aroused, much interest, many worshippers, from different congregations', visiting the gi-ave. A floral tribute was placed lipon the tomb by the office-bearers of St. Peter's ejid the M'Cheync memorial churches. The magistrates and members of the Town Council attended the service at St. Peter's, where Dr Stalker preached a memorial sermon on tho words: "Holiness, without which no man shall see tho Lord" (Heb. xii, 14). At the M'Choyno Momoral Church Rev. A. N. Sutherland eaid: "Robert M'Ohoyne had a passion for soul 3, joined with a deep experimental knowledge of tho things of God, and of tho workings of tho liumoji heart, backed up by a manifestly holy life. It v.rns a saint of God who moved along these Dundee streets, now more than 70 years ago. Wherever ho wont, in his numerous journeying, men felt he had a message, and that ho gave it first to his own soul."

In tho quadrennial general conference of the Church of t!io United Brethren in Christ held in Decatur, Illinois, the outstanding question of tho sessions was the proposed union of the denomination with the American Methodist Protestant Chu;t-li. Combined the two wouM make a body of half a million members. During the past two years a Joint Committee has drafted a syllabus of union, including both a creed ajid the outlinea of a form of government. This was submitted to the General Conference for approval, and when it came up for consideration the members of tho Methodist Protestant Committee were in attendance- and addresed the United Brethren delegates. Bishop W. M. Bell, of California, responded for tho United Brethren, appealing to his fellow-churchmen not to neglect tho opportunity for accomplishing a work of church unification which, lie predicted, would set going n general movement for Italian _ among Related bmnchce of Protestantism. Whfen tho vote was taken thorn were oto Toiccs against the resolution which declared thai tho General Conference "commit? itself unreservedly to the proposed policy of union with the Methodist Protestant Church." Those in opposition were willing to postpone their contest with the unionists until tho voting in annual conferences and local congregations. It is provided in tho union plan that the question shall first be submitted to tho nnnual conference, and if approved by three-fourths of them, it Rhallbe submitted to a popular vote of tho private membership. If the question again obtains a three-fourths majority, the bishop? arc to convene the General Conference for final ratification. Tho Uh'.irch Union Commission :nnd the editors of the church papers were officially instructed to work in favour of tho union idea.