SUNDAY OBSERVANCE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20582, 4 December 1928, Page 3

SUNDAY OBSERVANCE.

SACRED CLAIMS OF THE DAY. ARCHBISHOP AVERILL’S VIEW. (Per Unitud Presa Association.; HASTINGS, December 3. Archbishop Averill, speaking in the Napier Cathedral on Sunaay night, dealing with the question of sunaay ooservaixce, said there was a great outcry lor a reduction' of religious obligations, but the sacred claims of the Lord’s Day could not be minimised or impressed too strongly. “Instead of cutting down man’s indebtedness to God, the Church in these days needs to emphasise the need of sacrifice lor the sake of witness and example,” Dr Averill said. He believed the Church was called on to face fonda mental questions and inquire whether devotion to a Pharisaic scrupulosity and a respect for matters of secondary import ance had not weakened its witness in thi world in respect ,to things that reallj mattered. It was a question whether faith had not suffered 'at the hands of theologians and whether God was not calling us to be exponents of a simpler, less complex, less overweighted, less narrow exposition of the eve. lasting Gospel, which seemed to decrease in favour as there, were; increases in stereotyped oredal dogmatic statements. The alienation from God was shown in .what was called secular civilisation. It was useless for the Church to deplore the evils > of society, the weakening of the moral law, and the drift from institutional religion. These thinge constituted a challenge to the Church to redeem the time because the days were evil, to scrutinise her methods, to put her own house in order, To the’ men in the street the Church was too greatly occupied, with trifles and concerned with sectarian differences, and he believed that the Church was more:concerned with orthodox dogmas than life, the future than the present, church-going than Christ-living. Grave dangers sprang from a narrow eoclesiasticism. There was a danger of confusing the Lord’s Day with the Jewish Sabbath. Real recreation of body and mind came within the limits of proper Sunday observance. It waa not the function of the Church to lay down rules regarding the' minimum of religious observance, but to impress upon all and sundry the sacred claims of the Lord's Day, which was not our own to spend in selfish pleasure but a day of Christian worship. The world and even some Christians wanted religion without the Cross and sacrifice. If the Church were to help the world her message must not ponder the world's weakrms but bo a call to real sacrifice. Only when tho_ world saw the real meaning of sacrifice ift the lives of professing Christians would it see Christ Himself.