KNOX CHURCH.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19803, 31 May 1926, Page 8

KNOX CHURCH.

ANNIVERSARY SERVICES. Services In connection with the sixtysixth anniversary of the opening of Knox Church and of the sixth year of the Rev Tulloch Yuille’s ministry In the church were held yesterday, when there were large attendance at both services. Special music was rendered by the choir under the leadership of the organist, Mr W. Paget Gale, Mr Jas. Patterson being the soloist. At both services Mr Yullle welcomed the strangers in the church who had come in response to the Invitations sent out for Church Rally Month. In the morning Mr Yuille preached from the text “Oh, Lord, Thou art stronger than I and hast prevailed” (Jeremiah 20. 7), and said: “The hind of men God uses to uplift mankind are men of the type of Jeremiah, men who distrust themselves, and yet know that God has hurled them into the battle for humanity. To uplift always means a battle, and every chureh that is alive is always in a state of ferment. We should not mistake the difficulties the Church is up against for defeat. In the Church to-day we are surrounded by difficulties, but we are not defeated. Let all who are working for humanity, even if they feel unfitted for the work, that their work is fruitless—let them just fight the more. If there is anything effective in their work at all it will bring glory to God, not to themselves, and in any case neither we nor our fellows can judge our work. God will judge.” In the evening Mr Yuille preached from the text “They have healed the hurt of my people lightly, saying ‘Peace, peace, when there is no peace.’ ” Speaking on the subject, "When optimism is accursed,” the preacher maintained that what makes blind optimists is greed of gftin on their part and lack of a religion that is truly ethical —a lack of the sense of personal sin. It is those who are conscious most of wrong within that are conscious most of the wrongs that afflict all humanity. “I want to preach among you,” said the preacher, “the holiness of God—not that holiness that a sheltered saint would see from a cloistered cell, but that active holiness that drives a crusader into armour and out into the battle of men and things, there to express God's holiness in men s lives and deeds. To be a Christian means believing in the Kingdom of God. and that means believing that all the evils that at present afflict humanity are in the last resort curable.”