THE SUNDAY CIRCLE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20354, 10 March 1928, Page 5

THE SUNDAY CIRCLE.

RELIGIOUS READING FOR THE HOME. A REGRET. I nrind me, now, how eagerly He flung His hand out, questing mine. And mine, alas ! Heavy in fetters of reluctance, clung Fast to my side. I let the moment pass. It will not come again. He stands far, far Beyond my groping hand’s repentant plea, And on His heart God sees a deep-set scar, My answer to the love Ho offered me. And I? Ah me! whene’er sad memory’s sigh Breathes back to life that hour—His grace, my pride— I see Christ stand there, saying “ It was I Who asked thee for thy love that was denied.” —Henry W. Clark, in the British Weekly, PRAYER. O Lord, by all Thy dealings with us, whether of joy or pain, of light or darkness, let us be brought to Thee. Let us value the treatment of Thy grace not simply because it makes us happy or because' it makes us sad. because it gives us or denies us what wo want; but may all that Thou sendest us bring us to Thee, that knowing Thy perfectness we may oe nil re in every disappointment that Thou art still loving us, is every darkness that Thou art still enlightening us, and in every en forced idleness that Thou art still using us; aye, in every death that Thou art giving ns life, as in His death Thou didst give life to Thy Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen. THE LAUSANNE CONFERENCE. An exhaustive analysis of the Lausanne Conference fills the entire issue, 169 pages, of Lo Christianisme Social, a loading French Protestant review. The publication of this Lausanne number indicates the extent to which the Faith and Order Con fercnce is still engrossing the mind of the Continental churches. M. Wilfred Monod. in a discerning article, recalls his impatence' during the long discussions on the sacramental issue, which led nowhere. “It is useless,” he comments, “ trying to leave a room through a closed window, like the wasp.” In his view, one of the most significant events of the conference was the declaration of the Orthodox Church that it was prepared to collaborate with the other churches in moral and social activities on the principles laid down at Stockholm. If the Lausanne Assembly had produced no other result, he says, it would of a place in the annals of Christian history. In an interesting passage M. Monod Bays: “When I presided at the Lord’s Supper in Lausanne Cathedral, Fredench Heller came to the Communion table, and I gave him the cup, I a Frenchman to the Gorman, I a Calvanist to the Lutheran. We were far removed from the fatal Conference of Marburg, and from that other table on which a Luther, arguing with a Zwingli wrote in chalk: Hoc cst corpus meuro.’ MISS ROYDEN IN BOSTON. With the purpose, partly, no doubt, of atoning for some other people’s reception of her in their city, the Church Press Club of Boston gave a luncheon to Miss Royden. the well-known English preacher, that seems to have been a most enjoyable affair. Dr Hartman, editor of Zion's Herald and president _of the Press Chib, was master of ceremonies, and Miss Royden gave an address that revealed in a remarkable way her gifts as a speaker as well as her fine Christian spirit and leadership. Miss Royden had something to say about marriage, but every sentence she uttered showed how fundamentally she was opposed to anything like the so-called ’ companionate marriage ” idea. She did plead for the fullest and frankest discussion of such matters as likely soonest to lead to an .understanding of what was involved and an establishment of the things that are best. Miss .Royden is convinced that disestablishment; Of thp. Church of England is quite possible following the adverse vote on the Prayer Book, though she herself is quite strongly opposed to such an ©verituation. CHINA TO SELECT. HER MISSIONARIES. Dr Henry I. Hbdgltifi,- a secretary of the National Christian Council of China, at the recent meeting of the Foreign Missions Conference in Atlantic City, had some very clear-cut things to say about) the future relationships of the Western nations to China, and especially the relationship of the Church of the West toward China. Among many arresting things was the following; “The Chinese Church and Chinese Christians are eager for a continued stream of missionaries from America and Europe, if they can have a voice in the kind of missionaries and in tno training of those missionaries.; We ought to be willing to concede this voice to the Chinese—the right to select the kind of men and women who are to _ come to their churches and schools, the attitudes of mind these men and women are to have toward China, the training they are to have_ before leaving for foreign service, the relationship they are to have to the Chinese Church.” That seems like a large demand in the light of the way we have been in the habit of : doing things, but, after all. isn’t it fair and reasonable? DR ORCHARD ON EXECCLESTAMBULISTICS. In a New Year’s message to his people al the King’s Weigh House Church, Dr W. E. Orchard says that the ideals of the Church are primarily only the minister’s, and no agreement can be assumed irom the apparent acquicsence of the congregation. But people ,walk °ut less these clays, “ because those who have exeoclesiambulistic tendencies hA-ye learned- to walk upward no more. ’ He tainks it likely that “we shall always be few in number, and perhaps get fewer; for not all who set out to run this race find they can keep on.” “We are doing our best,” says Dr Orchard. “ to come luto communion with everybody which calls itself the Church of Christ. The net result, so far, is that we are more o r loss out of communion with every one; barely tolerated, suspected, feand, denounced or excluded.” “Wo must,” he declares, “go on striving to show the Free Churchmen that there is nothing that gives such fredom as the faith- once• delivered' to the saints, enshrined in the creeds .and dogmas of the Church; they only fix the centre from which a. wide and inclusive circle can then be drawn. . . . The Liturgy of the Mass and the Offices not only .cave room for, but demand, individual devotion, and the ordered corporate worship obviously encourages and provides the background for private prayer. We must go on pointing out' to Roman Catholics the historic reasons for the Reformation and the fear that keeps Protestantism alive. . . . And wo have to persuade the ethicist, the pacifist and the socialist that without the creed, the Church and the' Sacraments not one of their ideals will ever be realised. NEWS ITEMS. The Rev. J. D. Freeman, D.D., formerly minister of Bel voir Street Baptist Chinch, Leicester, has been appointed Professor of Homiletics at Mercer University, Macon, U.S.A., a Baptist College with 1200 students. The Rev. F. W, Boreham, the popular religious essayist, who was to pav a visit to England this summer, has fractured his thigh and will have to spend at least a month on his back. Gipsy Smith has recently concluded a three weeks’ mission in Nashville, for which (it is stated in the Christian Century) he received £2OOO. ‘‘No churches report any ingathering of new members,” it is added, but the audiences were large. The Rev. D. R. Davies, the Southport Congregational minister, who was standing as the Labour candidate in the byelection at Lancaster, claims that his kind of Socialism lias the authority not only of the major prophets of the Old Testament hut of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He was a Socialist, Mr Davies said at Moroenmbe, and proud of it, and not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, because if He were living to-day He would bo in the ranks of the Labour Party. In a sermon at the City Temple, London, Dr F. W. Norwood raised the question of the appropriateness of Westminster Abbey as the burial place of Thomas Hardy. “It is difficult,” said Dr Norwood, “to speak on the subject without being misunderstood. Thomas Hardy was a great writer and a good man. But Hardy held views of God which, if they were popularly held by the people of thig country, would make Christianity impossible.” He did not blame Hardy for holding those views, nor did he blame any man for holding the views which he felt himself compelled to hold. Hardy made hia characters the playthings of an unheeding Tate. There was certainly evidence which might be thought to support that view of life, and it was a philosophy

which was rermtahly held. “ But it flops wom stranr'P that we-have no other place than the Ahhov in wh’eh Hardys dust nnnld snitahlr he laid. T thitilc that, perhaps it would h« wise if no man was hnriod in the Mhe" rMil 10 rears had (dar-sed after Ms death, so that them ,„Pdit h-> formed a more j"st estimate of his work and it? tendency.”