Y.M.C.A. MEETINGS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18867, 21 May 1923, Page 10

Y.M.C.A. MEETINGS

At the Y.M.C.A. yesterday morning tho residents’ meeting was addressed by Mr J. Jackson Purdie. His address was directed to the aim of encouraging the upward look in every aspect of life, faking the vision of Jacob in his time of extremity as a basis, tho speaker proceeded to show it to be a fundamental law in business or in Spiritual things, that a man can only attain that to which- ho aspires. He urged his hearers to keep ever present the thought of the world being better for the individual having lived,' arid ho pointed out that as in Jacob’s vision, so there was in reality a ladder stretching to Heaven, and, ns we attempt to ascend it with the idea of reaching God Who is above, there is Spiritual assistance offered every rung of the way. In the afternoon Rev. W. J. Eddy, of Australia, who has recently returned from a visit to the leper settlements of the world, gave an intensely interesting address on the work being done by his mission. He first traced references to leprosy from the Scriptures, and showed that at first the Jews cared for their lepers till finally the world over the leper became the outcast. Mr Eddy said that Christianity alone held, out any hope for the leper; all the cults of India treated him as a pest, and in many parts of China ho was summarily destroyed. The mission for lepers, however, worked hand in hand with every denomination in helping to save him spiritually and physically. The once incurable leper has at last a chance in that medical science has discovered a remedy that in 25 per cent, cures the patient, and. in the majority of cases, at least stays the progress of the disease. A bright spotin the whole business, said the speaker, was the fact that it was not a hereditary disease, and that it was possible to save the children, many of whom had become bright Christians, and grown up to married life with no taint of the disease.