THE EXAMPLE OF THE CHURCH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22022, 3 August 1933, Page 10

THE EXAMPLE OF THE CHURCH

TO THE EDITOR. Sib, —One gets rather tired of reading that Oean So-and-so or Archbishop Somebody has said that if countries wish to become a« brothers and if the spirit of international goodwill is to become universal these results can only be reached through a proper study and understanding of Christianity. Speeches of this type sound well enough, but let us take a look at the leaders of religious thought. Do we find any signs of brotherhood amongst them? Not a scrap of it! Even the smallest country town has three or four sects (I almost said tribes), each fighting to fill its own particular church, unmindful of the fact that the entire population would barely fill a single one of them. In other words, we have ministers of the Gospel trying to do one another, out of a livelihood —a good and Christian act. , In America at present there are only 212 different sects-'-truly a splendid example of Christian unity of purpose. With the leaders of the churches so petty and so narrow-minded (they would, perhaps, prefer the term “single-minded”) that they lead away some of their ‘ sheep ” to form a new sect because of the most trifling and unimportant difference of opinion, it is surely somewhat bold of these canons and other “ big guns ” to advise us how to put the whole world in order when their own department of it is in such a struggling and divided mess. • —I am, etc., > Let the Cobbler Dunedin, August 2.

Other Letters to the Editor appear on page 15,