THE SUNDAY CIRCLE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19204, 21 June 1924, Page 5

THE SUNDAY CIRCLE

RELIGIOUS READING FOR THE HOME. SURVIVAL. The thing; thought lost with our dead survives— Sc Beauty and God’s clear Word declare. A great love never goes out of our lives; ’Tis ours unchanging both hero and there. Then live and love, being ever sure Toward Beauty and God’s clear Word supremo, For every immortal investiture Is only what Faith has dared to dream. —Lyman Whitney Allen. PRAYER. Guide Thou our thought, 0 Lord; give us words to speak, and let the power of the Lord be present, to wound and to heal, to cast down every high thought that lifts itself against Thee, and to raise all that is low and depressed. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. SOME MARKS OF A CHRISTIAN. Tho Christian has a new view ol himself. Tho true Christian has a new view of Christ. A Christian is a new being;, living in a now world. 'The true Christian . . . ’‘estimates no man by externals.” Tho Christian knows God as a great man is known by his fr onds. A Ciiristinn is one who kno >s that he can no longer live to himself. Get a Christ an by himself and one ought to recognise him by decisive characteristics. Christ ... is a living, present, friendly reality, intimately in touch with tho inner lire of the soul. Dr 'Merrill. MORAL FORCE IS OUR STRENGTH. Following is tho concluding paragraph of President Uoolidgo's Now kork > uy address ; On what nations are at homo depends what they will be amoad. If the spirit oi freedom rules m their domestic affairs, it will rule in their foreign affairs. The world knows that wo do not seek to rule by lorcc of arms; our strength is in our moral power. Wo increase the desire for _ peace everywhere by being peaceful. We maintain a military force for our defence, but cur offensive Los in tho ustice of our cause aro against war because it is destructive. Wo are lor peace because it is constructive. We seek concord with all nations through mutual understanding. W c believe in treaties and’cc.venants and internal onal l aw as a permanent record for a reliable determination of action. All these aro evidences of a right intention. But something more than these is required to _ maintain the peace of tho world. In its final determination in must come •'•oni the heart of the. people. 'Unless it abide there, wo cannot build for it any artificial lodgin- place. If tho will of tho world he evil, there is no artifice bv which we can protect tho nations from evil results. Governments can do much for tho betterment of the world. They are tho instruments through which humanity acts in international relations. Because they cannot do everything, they must not neglect to do what they can. But tho rial establishment of nonce, the complete maintenance of good will toward men, will be found only in tho righteousness of the people of the) earth. Wars will cease when they will that they shall cease. Peace will reign when they will that it shall reign.

A SERVICE AT WINDSOR. THE ARCHBISHOP ON DEMOCRACY. With their Windsor Castle guests, including Mr Ramsay MacDonald and his daughter, the King and Queen attended a special service in St. George Chapel in celebration of St. George’s Day. The Archbishop of Canterbury preached. St. George’s Day. ho said, had always been a sort of emblem of presentment of our purpose and resolve as a people—namely, the conquest and trampling underfoot of what was brutal and mischievous, coarse and unclean, and tho triumph of what was straight and manly, lovely and honourable and of good report. The historian of our age would draw a picture of a restless, over-crowded people, just emerging from the greatest war tho world had ever known, trying to find its. wav back to equilibrium. He would note that the people, confronted by many problems, was calling to its aid forces, not novel indeed, but now for the first time authoritative, and that democracy was revealing in new ways both its powers and its perils. What would posterity say about the religious element in the life of to-day? That depended, said tho Primate, on things ho dared not forecast. He would leave with them, not a prophetic vision of triumph in the strife, but a quickened sense that there wag here and now such a strife to maintain and that, in tho peculiar conditions of our day and generation, there were new moans, if wo could only grasp them, which somehow or other wo must use. DEATH OF DR R. P. DOWNES. FOUNDER OF “GREAT THOUGHTS.” Founder and for 31 voars editor of “Great Thoughts” till his retirement at the age of 72 in 1914, Dr Robert Percival Downes died a day before his eighty-second birthday at his homo at Hove on Monday. He was born at Ripon, the son cf a Weslovan tradesman. A master at Ripon Grammar School took a great interest in him, and encouraged his love of literature. After two years in a grandfather’s’ hosiery business at Fili'nhurgh. ho began to study for the law, fmt found legality too prosaic. He entered the hosiery 2business again in London, and led a somewhat wild life till “scundlv converted” under Newman Hall’s ministry. Tie took to Sunday evening evangelism in St. James’s Park, and then entered tho Wesleyan ministry. After 20 year? of circuit work he became a minister without charge in order to devote his whole time to “(treat, Thoughts.” He last money mi it until a Fleet-street advertising firm took it over and set it on its feet. The paper served a very useful purpose in introducing lay preachers end others to the best, authors. British and foreign, by extracts from their works and chat about them. Ur Downes had a genuine enthusiasm for good literature, and was always on the look-out for usable quotations, which helped to point manv a sermon moral and adorn many an address. From his industrious pen flowed 14 books, with such inviting titles as “The Art of Noble Living,” “Woman: Her ("'harm and Power,” and “Pure Pleasure,).” Livingstone College, U.S.A., gave him his LL.D. degree.

NEWS ITEMS. A departure has been made from the conventional in the celebration of the Communion in Dundee Unitarian Church. Instead of wine following the bread, the elders pass round a common cup containing grapes. Each communicant takes a grape, and the surplus is distributed among the sick members of the congregation. In explaining the innovation, Rev, Henry Williamson said that at first port wine was used and then unformented wine, hut that the substitute was not regarded as suitable. '■'hr> thought, then occurred to him, why not use the grape itself, from which wine was produced? He believes that (he new method does not in any way detract from the solemnity of the service, and that it is a perfect solution of the problem of-fer-mented versus iinfcr ncntcd wine and also of the individual versus the common cun at Communion. Mr John E Andrus, described as “the richest Methodist in the world," gave some reminiscences of his early days in presenting his annual report to the New Vork 'VliKliat Conference ns treasurer of (he trustees of that body. “Mv father.” he said, "was a MeMmdiat preacher, and I know sortedhing of the lights and shadows of a Methodist parsonage. The Methodist itinerancy gave me a chance, and ibis is all any of us ic entitled to, 'll it; Methodist itinerancy gave me the opportunity of moving around." Mr Amir - -vent on In say (hat the first money he carried was as a substitute for a street la nnlichter. One evening a> he was on his rounds. someone came along and asked bin to help m delivering goods, and later be obtained the job of collecting (he names of everybody within ce-t-nn •'look-- near V* home < l the end of 'P> ilavs he handed hU f.phei more monev than his father had received ‘hat month for preaching. Mr A mini-- i- a cnn-utaelurcr, and formc-lv «nl in <Vpgross , President dee! nl <he IV gills! iVim. hl,--e- ie Ibe eli!T' '■• h- 'U- | 1,.It , , i Urn nm. May m h u i-, :i: 1... • • 1 1 api ears fi-c t(! I (i,. p.m his !’I ■V. M b, \ob ; . V! t . ~f ( ’.■•tiibridge. showing not on!- I>r C: ■m * sith'd a"- o-urdishr.■.■!•!"; and -vit ic ■ be! something of (I"' I ‘ b-* - I ■ T he. .-ii ■-,••■ oil! mb the iiii.-n- b'".., m,a! K ! bin'his most notable ne-s--.n d • pc.ld i-- -i : i pass io., fpv |r....d.--e- '-I, ■-■ -I ■ l l ■ ■ 1 --1 ■■ .) i •!.; in’- ic re ol !•■ ■! iC; I :I: I de-.iie ii'. bib. like a sic !:" ■'si'-sn-v. -n.-i i. aim- . . ■- to lake as -or! ' : ve.-i iie resents no .-I rabbi m.in,, l-.nl neb comes it. and h<-lievi - in- I I • ;bb imc.. bv every man stating vb.ii lie m,-..- , u ,,, .-n ‘‘m clearnosa and iorce of bg-!i lm is