THE SUNDAY CIRCLE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19970, 11 December 1926, Page 5

THE SUNDAY CIRCLE.

EELIGIOUS READING FOR THE HOME. A PRISONER OF THE LORI). Who is my gaoler now? Not stern-browed F ate ; I knew his scowl and cruel chain of old. And suffered sorely but escaped (thougn late); And now I smile at him —lost in his hold. Is it wild Chance who seems to keep the keys Of all the darksome dungeons underground ? Soon as I strained for freedom ho would seize And plunge me in a deeper cell, fast bound. But now 1 have a gracious, kindly Warden, Who brings me daily bread and talks with me; When shadows fall He leads me to His garden; I with my chain, yet gloriously free. Not Fate nor Chance can harm: to Him they bow. 1 am Love’s prisoner, yet a free man now. —M. BPRAYER. Almighty God, our heavenly Father, Who hast taught us that in love to Thee and to our neighbour wo keep all the commandments, enable us to love Thee with our whole heart, and our neighbour as ourselves; endue us with the graces of Thy Spirit; conform us to Thy nghte-, ous will; and strengthen our weakness by Thy power, through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen. TEXTS FOR DEVOTIONAL READERS. THE COMPASSION OF GOD. (1) It is of tile Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions tail not. —Lara, iii, 22. (2) Though he cause gnel yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of hi* mercies. —tarn, iii, 32. (3) He will turn again, He, will nave compassion upon us; He will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depth of the sea. —Mic. vii, 19. (4) He hath made His wonderful wonts to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and full of compassion.—Psalm 111, 4. (5) But he being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not; yea, many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath. —Psalm Ixxvjii, 38. (6) But Thou, 0 Lord, art a God lull of compassion, and gracious, long suffering, and abundant in mercy and truth.— Psalm Ixxxvi, 15. (7) The Lord is gracious and full of compassion; slow to anger and of great mercy.—Psalm cxlv. S.

SCOTS’ EPISCOPAL CHURCH CONGRESS. There was hold in Ulasgow a three days’ congress arranged'by the -Episcopal Church in Scotland. The object Of the congress was to deal in a helpful way with pressing problems which confront the Christian Church in advancing the cause of religion. An attractive programme of subjects and speakers was arranged. The Most Rev. the Primus (Bishop W. J. Kobberds), in the course of his opening address, said that they all knew the drift from organised religion, as it was now often called, and in some quarters actual hostility to it. There was also, said the bishop, very real activity and life seen in organised religion; there was a curiously tangled situation, the drift on the one hand, the revival of personal zeal and devotion on the other. Where were their hope and help ? The Church wanted to show by this convention how intensely she did care. The Rev. Canon Spencer H. Elliot Sheffield spoke on the privilege and responsibility ol the Christian layman. A man had said to him, “Mind you, I don't say I do much at religion, I go in more for fishing-. ” They must try, said the canon, to bring home to the. minds of such men that the practice of Christianity Was not a mere hobby like fishing or keeping chickens to he cultivated by a few enthusiasts according to their fancy, extra to the ordinary activities of life and independent of their daily business and their serious interests. The Christian religion was nothing at all unless it was the motive and inspiration of everything they did.

The test of a Christian man was a test of character, well defined, something clear and definite this Christian character must be. said the canon. It must transcend tlie ordinary standards of the respectable man of the world. It might bo expressed by what was peculiar to the Scottish character or it might be expressed by the Indian mystic or by the adventurous pioneer in the far west. It ha' 1 readied a very high form of expression in the overseas missionary. Perhaps one of the best definitions of (ho layman as a Christian was that suggested by the prophet Micah: "What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mery and to walk humbly with thy God?” The’ Rev. A. K. J*. Eawlinson, D.D., spoke on the “Church.” The history of the Church, he said was the history of the truth from many aspects. The problem of Christian reunion was not going to be solved, he said, upon the basis of any narrow legalist conception of the Church. They were not entitled, he believed, to “unchurch” any baptised Christian or any baptised group of Christians. It was a manifest scandal, said Dr Rawlinson, that they should be out of communion with Baptists and Quakers. The reunion pf Christendom, whensoever, and in whatever form it took place, would not be the result of a quasi political scheme, but the result of the deep passionate longing of many hearts. It would be the work of the Spirit of God achieved because it was part of the purpose of God thnt they all may bo one. , . The Rev. Provost Erskine Hill asked in his address, how they could alter the religious training given in their English and Scottish public schools, so that they might turn out a steady stream of men who had learned in their school days to love their Church with areal and fervent love? The Church was not presented to boys during their school life in a form calculated either to attract or help them. Their boys needed a religion which would help them in their difficulties, and they would love for ever a Church that proved a true spiritual mother to them when they were young. The Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney said that’ in Scotland they could not have their religion on the cheap. They had to pay for it and their alms-giving had to be stamped with the trade mark of the Cross. They could not indulge in the expensive luxury of maintaining parties in their Church They must live and let live. In all places, said the bishop, elderly people wore extremely conservative in religious matters. They refused to recognise that life meant change and that only by adaptation to environment could living organisms exist. Ihe bishop urged the laity whether young or old to speak a word of encouragement to their clergymen now and then. In many parts of Scotland, he said, the laity were so reserved that they only showed their appre* elation by attending their rector's funeral The bishop went on to say that halfhearted churchmanship was useless either for this world or the next —the churchmanship which had no self-surrender, no fire no spirit of sacrifice. It must go all the way. The chairman at the final meeting was a leading layman of the Church, Dr John Spens, Glasgow, who said that if their war with sin and unbelief was to be eucocssful in a real sense, it was with the laity that the future lay. They must have courage and faith, and that in all their doings they must act out the religion they professed. NEWS ITEMS. “Father Endeavour Clark and Mrs Clark have just cc|ebrated their golden wedding. The occasion has brought them a large number of letters of congratulation from leading Americans, including President Coolidge. It has further inspired Dr Clark to the writing of an article for the Christian Endeavour World,_ in which he reviews his happy life during the last half-century, and draws some general conclusions as to marriage. He thinks that, when once devotion has been adequately tested, it is a mistake to put off marriage until middle age stares one in the face “It is easier,” he says, “to fit oneself into another’s life before habits and conventions stiffen into grooves or perhaps into ruts.” Dr Clark was himself married at (he age of 25. , A joint service of the Aberdeen Elders Hnions of tho Church of Scotland and the United Free Church was held on a recent Sunday in King’s Chapel. The preacher was tho Very Rev. Professor W, P. Pater son, D.D., Edinburgh. In the course of Kis sermon, Professor Paterson dealt with the principles and characteristics which were the common heritage of Scottish Pres-

bytorianism. Ihe Scottish Church, he said, always claimed, and still claimed, to be a branch of the Church Catholic. It had also been one of the sturdiest of Protestant churches holding firmly the four cardinal principle? that were laid down at the Reformation in opposition to the peculiar doctrines of the Roman Catholic system. 1110 special feature of the Reformed Church, said Professor Paterson, which had followed Calvin and John Knox, was the position and influence accorded to the people and particularly to the class ot office-bearers or elders The elders were given a largo share of government, in Kirk Sessions, Synods, and General Assemblies, and they were associated with ths ministers in the supervision of the flock. They could distinguish three stages in the history of the eldership, its spiritual power in the sixteenth and seventeeth cew turios, its decline in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and its revival in recent times when the oldorsnin largly resumed a share of pastoral duties.