SUNDAY CIRCLE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23885, 12 August 1939, Page 19

SUNDAY CIRCLE

LOYALTY HYMN While nations rage, while empire* rock and fall, While hatred burns, and greed and war increase. , With heart and voice we dedicate, our all . . ■’■■■•. Once more to Thee, 0. mlghtjr Prince of Peace. Fast grow abysmal rifts in •very land, O’er creed and class, oer wealth and soil and blood, Through all the earth, made one in Thee, we stand — Thy Church in its transcendent brotherhood.' Into the soon-forgotten past they die, „ _ . False gods that rise and’ flourish for a day. Not so Thy Gross, firm rooted in the Thy S words, O Christ, shall never pass away. While nations rage, • while empires rock and fall, ■ , ;/ While hatred burns, and greed and war increase, . • , With heart and voice we dedicate our all : Once more to Thee, O mighty Prince of Peace. —Edith Lovejoy Pierce, in the Christian Century. PRAYER Enlighten our understandings with knowledge of right; and govern our wills by Thy laws, that no deceit may mislead us, no temptation corrupt us; that we may always endeavour to do good and hinder evil. Ajnidst all the hopes and fears of this world, take not Thy Holy Spirit from us; for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. —Dr Samuel Johnson, 1709. A BIBLE QUIZ The Life of Faith gives the following as a test of Bible knowledge:— What is the rendering of the Revised Version in the following passages, and where Are they to be found? 1. “Blessed be the Lord, Who daily loadoth us with benefits.” 2. “When he heard him, he did many things, and heard him gladly.”, 3. “If thou canst believe, all things lire possible to him that believeth.” 4. "What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad? ” 5. "Having a desire.to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better.” 6. “The Word was made'flesh, and dwelt among us.” t DICTA OF THE WEEK I thank God that I can hand over to my successor a more -peaceful' Church in London than would have been possible 50 years ago.—The Bishop of London. In our own country, and in other like-minded countries, there must be , defence of things more sacred even than peace. The Archbishop of Canterbury. Public opinion is the opinion of a Sle that wants to control its own nies.—Mr George Gray Thomson. It is important that everyone Aould spend a certain amount of time every year in quite disreputable clothes;— ; The Archbishop of York. . ' —The Guardian. STILL THE yfOBK GOBS ON ’ In view of questions frequently asked regarding the effect of the recurring international crises on Church attendance, it is Interesting .to hear the experience of ,a worker of the McAll Mission In France, who has charge of a mission church in a Com- ' munist suburb of Paris:—“The social and international happenings of the past year have been far from;favourable to our work. The political ferment which has been constantly active in this district have been forces opposed to evangelistic work. Yet in spite of everything, and the power of our adversaries notwithstanding, we have had great encouragement and; • multiple blessings.” DOPE “I sympathise,” says Onlooker, in the Guardian, “with the complaint ‘ made by the Rev, M. E.'Aubrey, general secretary of the Baptist Union, at the posters outside many churches bearing such words as “Don’t worry, it may never hapuen,” or “The tide turns also when it is low.” The passer-by reads these and wonders why churches should appeal for his loyalty, if this is all the guidance they have to give him. It would be better to have no message at all displayed outside a church than one which merely brings Christian teaching into contempt. I pass one of these notices fairly regularly, and whenever I read it I wonder why it is exhibited, for it appears to achieve little more than to present the church as a body of sentimental, optimists, and; its religion as “ dope.” It is queer, that the clergy who use ■ these notices do ■> not realise that many of them, so far from attracting people to. church, ar« but turning them away.” . ’ THE AGE OF EXPERIMENT • Public worship, said the Rev. R. B. Parker, travelling secretary of the Anglican Evangelical Group Movement, in a recent address to the Clergy Home Mission Union, must be purged of all that is mechanical and irrelevant. The Holy Spirit did hot stop working in 461, or 1662, or 1928. Not “ stunts,” but experiments must be made to allow the living, risen Christ struggling against, the hard barriers of our timidity and prejudice, to give Himself to a tormented world. Immutability spelt death; ordered change was God’s first law. Could the Church prepare orders of specialists in worship, music, art. Bible-teaching, prayer, and in the healing ministry to receive back into some form of worshipping communal life the new generation of believers? 1 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCHES “ Soul ” is the subject of the lessonsermon in all Churches of Christ, Scientist, to-morrow. • The golden text is “ The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore, will I hope in Him” (Lamentations iii: 24). Among citations which comprise the lesson-sermon is the following from the Bible; “Ye are my witnesses, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither Shall there be after me” (Isaiah xliii: 10). The lesson sermon also includes the following passage from the Christian Science text book, “ Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” by Mary Baker Eddy, “The Science of being reveals man as perfect, even as , the Father is perfect, because the soul, or mind, of the spiritual man in God, the Divine principle of all being, and because this real man is governed by soul instead of sense, by the law of 1 spirit, not by the so-called lews of matter.” ■