THE SUNDAY CIRCLE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19009, 3 November 1923, Page 5

THE SUNDAY CIRCLE

RELIGIOUS READING FOR THE HOME. MY FATHER’S WORLD. This is my Father’s world. And to my listening ears. All nature sings, and round me rings The music of the spheres. This is my Father’s world, I rest me in the thought Of rooks and trees, of skies and seas — His hand the wonders wrought. Maltbie D. Baboock. A PRAYER. Almighty God and Father: Wo beseech Thee to bless the ministry of our church. Endow all Thy servants who preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ with heavenly grace that they may preach without fear and with deep sincerity the glorious gospel of the blessed God. Especially would wo lift our prayers to Thee on behalf ol our younger ministers, that, like Timothy, they may preach the Word, and be instant in season and out of season. May none despise their youth; but may they be clothed with authority and power, and be respected and honoured by all as the messengers of the Master So may they be sustained by Thy Spirit and make good ministers of Jesus Christ. For His Name’s sake. Amen. HONESTY IN; THE PULPIT. DR FOSDICK’S APPEAL TO CONGREGATIONS. Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick, preaching recently in the First Presbyterian Ohuron, New York, on “Honesty in the Pulpit,” said: “T he problem of the ministry in the matter of honesty is very difficult. For one thing, the minister is a public speaker, and that is a dangerous thing to be. The whole possibility of glowing and effective public speaking depends upon the sympathetic response of the audience. In consequence, the pressure is constantly on the minister to give the people what they want. In theology, in social and industrial questions, in international affairs, he is tempted not to speak what he really thinks, but to give the people what they want. . . “Presumably the minister is a family man. Ho has a wife and children whom he loves. He is dependent financially on the goodwill of his congregation, and it goes hard with his conscience sometimes when ho faces the possibility of proclaiming a disturbing truth. . . “The minister is not only a public speaker and usually a family man, but be is a gentleman. And gentlemen never like to be the cause of a disturbance. . . Elemental truth and candour are important in any realm, but there is no realm vhere the lack of them is so fatal as in religion. This, then, is the appeal to the Church: Make it easier, not harder, for your ministers to think freely, bravely, truly about the deep concerns of the spiritual life. . . . But whenever yon find a minister trying to think through the truth of Christianity in terms that can be apprehended by modern minds and lived in modern circumstances, you had better pack him up, for he is doing constructive work.” WHERE IS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH? DR ORCHARD’S ANSWER. At King’s Weigh House, London, on a recent Sunday night, Dr Orchard preached to a very large congregation on “The Rediscovery of Catholicism.” This generation, he said, had seen an extraordinary Catholic revival. The Roman Church stood to-day in a position of power and respect greater tnan any it had occupied since the Reformation. It still displayed a capacity for creating undoubted saintship and the most amazing sacrifice. It continually overcame the resistance of the most unexpected persons, and although it was often greatly hated, and even feared, by sincere Christians, it equally often greatly impressed agnostics and worldlings, who said that if they joined any Church it would be the Roman Church, which perhaps was the reason why ‘hey did not join any. As for the Anglican Church—a Church founded on compromise—• the Catholic party had altered its complexion within the last SO years. The very Elizabethan documents had to he altered to meet the new situation. It was aiflicult to say what was happening in the Free Churches, for the sort of thing that went on at King’s Weigh House must not bo taken as indicative of what went on generally. But even among the Free Churches there was movement, only just beginning, very slow, without clear ideas and principles, in the same direction. Was Catholicism separable from its historic abuses? At the heart of the dislike of .Roman Catholicism in many minds was the fear of a revival of persecution. It was true, of course, that it was not only the Roman Church which had persecuted—if there was a Smithfifld there was also a Tyburn—but the modern world was not convinced that Rome had renounced the persecuting spirit. Where, then, was Catholicism? It was difficult to identify it with anything at present in existence. To allow the Roman claim to be true of itself alon© was to exclude half Christendom. Moreover, Rome did not come out so well in the test of fruits as to sanction such a clear,cut division. She had kept trno to certain outward forms, and had a great claim of priority; but if, as a Roman-American newspaper put it, the Protestant Church was like the prodigal son, the Roman Church was rather like the elder brother. He would suggest that Catholicism was an ideal, imperfectly realised at present,' held in broken pieces, deposited in different degrees in different churches, some having kept the form, some the order, some the faith, some the unity, and others, with none of these things, yet having the spirit. The constituent elements of Roman Catholicism had been miraculously preserved, and one day they would be brought together in a richer unity and a greater purity and a more effective power. The Catholic Church would not he a loose federation of all the churches arranged so as to balance one another and correct one another, but a fusing of-them together under the fire of love into a great instrument in the hands of Christ. The Protestant protest against abuses must bo given its place even in the Catholic Church. Reunion would come, not by negotiation, but like the dawn. TWO WOMEN IN TRANSJORDANIA, There are two plucky Englishwomen in the centre of the latest area of world unrest —Transjortlania. They are Dr Charlotte Purnell, M. 8., M.S.. and Miss E. G. Butlin, of the Church Missionary Society, who established a dispensary as the centre of the medical and missionary work in the district at Amman in 1920. Their pertinacity, and courage are shown by the fact that Dr Purnell, since she went to the Near East in 1911, has eleven times tried to establish work at Amman, and ten times has been turned out of the city, once being assaulted there by a robber, strangled, and left 1 for dead. She was on her way home for furlough when the war broke out, and until she could return to Palestine did medical work in Egypt as house surgeon at the Bolton Military Hospital, and also studied for her Master of Surgery degree, one held by few women. She is niece of the late Sir Mackworth Young, Governor of the Punjab, and she inherits the family love of adventure. Miss Butlin wont out to the East as a nurse under the British Syrian Mission in 1888. and has worked in Mesopotamia and Egypt. She is a Bristol woman, and of the same plucky typo as her colleague. Amman, by the way. is probably unique, as here Sunday by Sunday all the Christians in the place—Protestants, Greek Orthodox, and Roman Catholics—meet together for united worship, following the morning prayer service of the English Church. NEWS ITEMS. All the reformed churches in Glasgow co-operated in the taking of n religious census of the city in the beginning of October. While primarily intended to discover how many children and young people are not attending Sunday schools or Bible classes, the visitors’ cards are designed for ascertaining at the same lime the number of families who have no church connection. For so great an undertaking the preparations have to he on a very large scale, but it is believed that the. information will be of such value as to warrant the effort that is being made. Rev. Dr M'Clyniont. ex-Aloderafor of the Church of Scotland and deputy-clerk of the General Assembly, has been in Amsterdam officiating at a special service bold in the Scots Church in celebration of the semi-jubilee of the coronation of Queen Wilbelrniua. This was not his first visit, for the minister of the Church in Amsterdam. Rev. W. Thomson, was at one lime his assistant in Hnlliurn Parish. Aberdeen. In the course of bis sermon Dr M'Clyniont referred to the benefhlent character of the Queen’s reign, and to lie debt of gratitude which the Church of Scotland owed to tho House of Orange.