THE SUNDAY CIRCLE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20702, 27 April 1929, Page 5

THE SUNDAY CIRCLE.

RELIGIOUS READING FOR THE HOME. HOLY GROUND. As I walk through the streets of Galilee And tread where*Jesua trod, ■My heart seems lifted up from earth And my soul communes with God. And as 1 muse awhile, 1 think „ I hear a gentle sound: Take off thy shoes from off thy feet. For this is Holy Ground.” As I walk through the garden, Gcthsematio, I drap a bitter teai’, lor the night of woe and agony That Jesus Christ passed here. -.ml ns I lift again my licad w I hear, as I look arouticj: “ Take off thy shoes from off thy feet, lor this is Holy Ground.” •As I walk up the hill named Calvary, here our Lord was crucified, I bend the knee and utter a prayer On a place where our Jesus died. ■And I hear as I kneel at this lonely spot, « re rc9 t.and peace arc found: ■ Take off thy slices from off thy feet, lor "this is Holy Ground.” Mary Delves, in the Christian World. PRAYER. Be.with us, wc pray, in all our thoughts Snd in all our occupations, to guide and sanctify. Make us wise in dealing with ourselves, that nothing of service which we might render may be lost to tho world through any self-losing of ours, or selfvitiating. whether in body, mind, or soul. -lußy we not fail to yield wbat wc might yield, and arc meant to yield, .from any neglect of self-attention, or from any truthfulness, insincerity, or affectation, — Anjen. “THAT NIGHTMARE OF THEOLOGICAL THINKING.” ,Hr Charles Brown paid a welcome Visit to Feme'Park Church on a recent Sunday,' when the church observed the thirty-ninth anniversary of the opening of its first building. A great congregation assembled for the evening service, the pastor-emeritus preached with all Ins customary power upon “The SnpremC' Manifestation of the Cross.” lucre is no anger or vindictiveness at ?F. the Cross,” he said, “save in the blinded minds and hearts of men. We .ve on S a E r> > thank God! got past that nightmare of theological thinking—that the Father was punishing His Son for the sin of the world; that the flaming sword of justice drawn by the hand of t.ocl to avenge man’s rebellion and disobedience is plunged into the heart ol Jlis sinless and obedient Son, who was punished for our sake. There is no shred of warrant for that theory in the New Testament, arid it offended the moral n f th °"shtful men. As Horace Bushnell truly and wisely savs, ‘ The sufferings of our Lord on the Cross do not appease God. they express Him’; and at the centre the Cross is the supreme appeal of the heart of God to the heart of man. MUSSOLINI’S RELIGION. "In Italy a political man did not even turn his thoughts to tho Deity 1 . . political cowardice and opportunism would have prevented him.” Signor Mussolini has been accused of bemp an Atheist, but Dr Griffith-Jones, vmtinp jn Great Thoughts, points to the following passage, which, he thinks, settles the point::— v • 15 in Parliament,” writes Mussolini, i pronounced my first speech of November 10, 1022, after the Fascist revolution, I concluded by invoking the assistance of God in my difficult task. This of mine seemed to be out of place. In the Italian-Parliament .. , the name of God has been banned for a lom* time Not even the Popular Party—the so-called Catholic Party—had ever thought of speaking of God. In Italy a political man did not even turn his thoughts to the r , even if *! e lla(1 ever thought ot it. political cowardice and opportunism would have prevented him. ... It remained for me to make this bold innovation, and in an intense moment of revolution. What is tho truth? It is that a faith openly professed is a sign of strength. I have seen the religious spirit bloom again. Churches once more are crowded, the ministers of God are themselves surrounded by a new respect. I'ascism has done, and is doing, its duty,” MRS EDDY’S USE OF DRUGS. „ The foundress of Christian Science employed physicians professionally and took drugs on numerous occasions during tho last 10 years of her life,” A. bombshell has been thrown in the Christian ►. ciencc camp in America. A formal protest has been addressed to the trustees of Mrs Eddy by Mr John V. Dittemore (a former diregtor of the Mother Church of Christian Science and a former trustee of Mrs Eddy’s will) against further publication in Sybil Williams s ‘ Life of Mary Baker Eddy ” that the realisation of life” (i.e.. the purely and spiritual form of treatment which Chrntian Science teaches) “had been for 40 years her great and only physician.” - " As yon will know,” writes Mr Dittemore, ■_ Mrs Eddy employed physicians professionally, and took drugs on nunlerous occasions during the lari 10 rears ot her life. As trustees of Mrs. Eddy’s estate, you have placed, or caused'to be placed, thousands of copies of this volume in-public libraries throughout the world. Ihua, through the use of Mrs Eddy’s trust funds you have misled the public regarding facts, the truth of which it is essential to make known in order, for her life -work to be understood.” As a consequence of this protest the sentence in the biography is to be revised to accord with the facts. Mr Dittemore claims that this is the first admission by Mrs Eddy’s trustees that she employed physicians and used drugs, A HELPFUL OFFER. "I believe I have discovered how to <iud, i£ so, I stand alone.” The Christian Century (Chicago) pubfishes in its correspondence columns a ‘helpful offer ” it has received in tho shape of a letter, which runs thus;— Sir,—l am writing to toll you that I have discovered a pVpcess of reasoning that will, if continued to its logical conelusion, kill off llic false doctrine of evolulion which has infiltrated all of the Christian churches in America and in the world. My ideas are brand new, original, and never been spoken before. My subject can be reduced to some 10 pages of typewriting, size of this. Our theological schools are right now honeycombed with evolution_and atheism. Would you be interested in helping to kill evolution? I am a man, a graduate physician, and also an ordained evangelist. I am 72, and consider myself the best posted, all-round Bible scholar in this .country. I believe that I have discovered how to kill evolution, and if so, I stand alone; for no other men have ever done this. If my paper is acceptable, I would like to know about what pay I would receive for its publication? This is big game. Arthur C. Bell, M.D., B.S. . Ardmore, Okla. ■ CHURCH UNITY IN THE U.S.A'i ■ Bishop. M'Cdnnell has been saying that before union of the churches becomes explicit it will have been long implied, “The great fact is,” says the Federal’ Bulletin, “ that most of the Protestant Churches m the United States have all but arrived at a common teaching on essentials and at a common brotherhood.” .’“The main problem now is one of mechanics; how to forecast the actual forms which larger unity should take, and how actually to bring together ' such varied and'enormous organisations as our Protestant communions. . . . Few any 16nger_ wish an absolutely centralised gigantic church controlled from one centre, but rather unions of groups that belong to the same general family; widening as experience develops, and a larger integration of all, foreshadowed possibly by the British Commonwealth of Nations, or by opr own . Federal Union of sovereign States.” i A PINAL TESTIMONY. \“Our duty,” says Lord Haldane in thelast chapter of his autobiograhpy, “is to work without turning our eyes to the right or to the left from the ideals which alone can light up our paths. . . We have to think of how to live before we can learn how to die.” ' ■

-*I have -no sense,” continued Lord Haldane in a self-revealing confession, “of success on any very large scale in things achieved. But-I have the sense of having worked and of Having found happiness, in doing so- Better that than more honours and more wealth and more •deem from men. For; the happiness