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METHODIST CONFERENCE

THE OPENING DAY.

ADDRESS BY REV. DR FITCHETT.

CRITICISM OF THE NEW THEOLOGY.

(Bt Odb Special Correspondent.)

The second General Conference of the Methodist Church of Australasia, began its sessions in the Centenary Hall, York street, Sydney, on Thursday, May 30. It is called the Second General Conference, as the minor Methodist churches united with the Wesleyan Church in 1902, thus being the aecond gathering since that union, but in reality it is the eleventh General Conference. The last annual conference of the Wesleyan Church of Australasia wa6 held in 1873, and on an average the General Conferences have been held every three years. Prior to the commencement of the Conference a reception was held at the new Masonio Hall, Castlereagh street, followed by a tea, at which 450 \isiting representatives, their wives, and hosts and hostesses were present. The Rev. J. Penman (president of the New South Wales Confererce), the Rev. J. Morris Taylor, and Mr T. H. England, 8.A., delivered short addresses of welcome, to which response was made by the Rev. Dr Fitchett (president General Conference), the Rev. J. G. Wheen (president Victorian Annual Conference), the Rev. William Slade (president New Zealand Conference), the Rev. C. Martin (president for the Australia Conference), the Rev. Dr Youngman (president Queensland Conference), and the Rev. A. S. J- Fry (president Western Australia Conference). The conference hall was crowded to overflowing when the president gave out the hymn which is universally sung- on these occasions "And axe we yet alive." In the early days of the Church that hymn meant a great deal. Then men often carried their lives in their hands. , The forces of civilisation were often turned against them, and when they met it was to recount their hair-breadth escapes. Now the greatest trouble is not public opposition, but public apathy and public applause. New South Wales was represented by 32 ministers and laymen, Victoria and Tasmania 40, Near "Zealand 24. South Australia 20, Queensland 12, Western Australia 10,— in all 13b: 69 ministers and 69 laymen

PBESIDEKT S ADDRESS. The Rev. Dr Fitchett (the retiring president) had a. cordial reception when he came forward to deliver his address. After Borne introductory remarks Dr Fitchett said : I do not say that that conflict between the two great forces of science and religion is wholly ended yet, but it is possible to affirm with the utmost confidence there is i<^ fundamental discord betwixt them. Science interprets God's thoughts as expressed in terms of mattery religion interprets God's thoughts as expressed in terras of morals ; both are thoughts of one Divine mind; there cannot be civil war amonf^t them. The whole temper of scientific men towards religion is changed. To-day we see one of the most famous of living scientists, Sir Oliver Lodge, writing a religious catechism for the instruction of parents and teachers.— (Applause.) We have the most venerated name in English science, Lord Kelvin, thrown with all its authority into the scales against atheism.— (Applause.) We have * great inventor like Edison telling us that ho finds wrought into the very structure of what men call Naturewritten on every page of Nature -the revelation of God. And the new science has already rendered this magnificent sor vice to religion; it has made any materialistic reading of the universe impossible. But science itself, by its own methods, has to-day ended that fear It has taught ue that the astronomy of the stellar heavens is only a half-truth; the other half— in a sense the more wonderful half -restores the balance. It bids us see God, not far off, walking amongst His stars, and forgetting us ; but God coming down to the very dust under our feet, and there working wonders almost greater than the stars themselves. The latest discovery of 6Cienc<? is what may be called the wonders anA glories hidden in infinitesimal things. I had the pleasure, when in London, of making the acquaintance of Mr Leonard Huxley, the 6on and biographer of the famous scientist. I reminded him one day of the mysterious energies of radium ; how a inicroscopio speck of radium can pour out a spray of fiery particles— a stream of electrical energy — sufficient to ring a bell for 30,000 years. I asked him whether that was not a new argument, from the scientific side, for the doctrine of immortality. Is it credible that Whoever made the universe 6tored in an atom an energy which would run through 30,000 years, and ga\e to the intellect that could measure the force of that radium only three score years and ten? And my friend admitted the logic There is no answer to it. Think of the astronomy hidden in the dust. I confess that the "story of that latest and greatest scientific discovery, the ultimate constitution of matter, affects me like a chapter in the New Testament, or like the opening of another of the apocalyptic seals in the Book of Revelation. They ha\e tiaccd matter down to the point where it cca c e> .to be matter, and becomes force. And ■when Bcience breaks open what was thought to be the primary molecule, it finds hidden in each atom a system of stars.— (Applause.) Here is a pebble, picked up on the seashore, flung by the last wave. Each of the innumerable molecules which compose it contains in its tiny curve an entire planetary system, and the atom-planets, packed in number* beyond counting in that stone, repeat incessantly the pageantry of sunset and dawn. They arc parted from each other and from their suns by immensities of space relatively as great as the heavens themselves. You may raise over every atom of the earth's dust the chant of the 6inging archangels before the throne, " Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty." All this reinforces faith; it is in the key of faith. Now. in tie light of all thi.«, what is the special peril -that threatens religion m the twentieth centtlry! It is certainly not the new science. Science n*:: only open new horizons of wonder and great. :r c " s in Nature, and so widen our conceptions of ™hat God can do, and will do, in that realm wi\."h is above Nature It is not the now criticism. We have in aome respects been unjust to the higher criticism, and have failed to see the value of the work it has done. We have been unwisely afraid lest

it should aucceed in dissolving the Bible into a miet of uncertain dates. But that fear is idle. Nothing is more certain than that a reaction against the extremer conclusions of the higher criticism vb setting in.— (Applause.) Not the new science, not the new criticism, but a much more subtle and dangerous thing, the new philosophy, is the special peril to religion in the twentieth century. The attempt has been made before, it is being repeated on & new 6cale, with new daring, and at many points repeated inside the church, not outside it. to attenuate Christianity into a philosophy ; "a philosophy which talks the language of Christianity, while abandoning its message, which uses the great terms of Christian theology, while draining those terms of their true sense, and charging them with a meaning in utter conflict witn that sense. —(Applause.) One book which has just been published, Rev. R. J. Campbell's " New Theology," has a special significance in this respect. It is in many respects a shallow book, a book packed full of contradictions; it will not deflect by a* single hair's breadth the serious faith of Christianity. It is nothing more than a bit of metaphysical fog shot through with scanty gleams of light. But the book will influence some people. It is written in strange accents of certainty. The writer is not only sure, he is cocksure. "I only wish I was as sure of anything," said Sidney Smith, "as Lord Macaulay is of everything." And the most orthodox believer might well envy the certainty that vibratea in every syllable of the " New Theology." The book, too, contains enough truth to command some respect. It has come into existence in the clash and fire of controversy, and it has something of the heat and something, too, of the energy which controversy gives.— (Applause.) But the book js, to vary the figure, only a bubble on the stream of religious thought ; and it will pass like a bubble. But a bubble may show which way the stream is beginning to run. And the " New Theology " has this value-^-it is the only serious value it possesses — it shows from which direction and in what shape the battle of Christian faith in this generation will come. The teaching of the new theology about God ia a disguised, but esential, Pantheism. Pantheism is a dreadful doctrine ; it is the denial of perfect holiness in God, and of distinctive personality in man. What sort of a religion can you extract out of that, or build on that? But our creed affirms, first, the eternal personality, the infinite holiness of God. He is not the universe. He is the Creator and Lord of the universe. It affirms, next, the indestructiblp personality of man. Duty is personal, sin is personal, responsibility is personal, faith is personal. At this * supreme point the old theology and the new confront each other. You are not all theologians ; but do you need to be theologians to know which is the saner, which is likely to last? What have the two theologies, again, to say about Christ? The new theology use 3 all the terms of orthodox faith, but it drajns them of their natural meaning ; it charges them with a new sense in utter contradiction to their true significance. Jesus is God, says Mr Campbell, but so aro we. He believes in the incarnation, but we are all of us incarnations. Every moral and spiritual advance is a virgin birth. We are all in varying degree our own Christs, and Christs to each- other. Now, if lam to be my own Christ, and we are to know no other Christs than such as we find in each other, may the Lord have mercy on us all ! In the theology for which we stand there is room for a personal and divine Saviour, for a real salvation, for an actual deliverance from sin ; and this is the only theology which fits the facts and can save the world. — (Applause.) What is the whole ros-ult of testing our own theology on these vital points against what -claims 'to be the theology of the future? It is surely that for us, at least, the future holds no peril. Our theology is scientific in method ; it is built on facts ; tt agrees with facts ; it is verified by facts. At the supreme points of God, of Christ, of sin, of the Bible, it is unassailable. — (Applause.) The anticipations of the representatives in the presidential address were high. No man in the church is as widely known and so universally esteemed. Tlie address was exceedingly interesting and of a very high order The R«v. J. Penman (president N S.W. Conference) and Sir Frederick Holder (Speaker of tho House of Representatives) voiced the appreciation of the Conference, and requested the publication I of the address.

ELECTION OF PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY.

As u«ual, great interest centred in the election of president. E.cry ministerial representative is eligible, there is no nomination and the -\oting is done by bal'ot. The Rev W. Williams, F.L.S., the retiring secretary, was elected president Ly a lar^c majority. The voting for secretary resulted in the election of Rev. Dr Younglr.an by an almost unnaimous vote. The Rev. W Williams, F.L.S.. was l*orn in South Australia in 1848. He has been cn»a"ed in circuit work in Victoria r.carly tho whole of his ministry. For the past five years he has been superintendent of tho (Jeelong circuit, where ho had fi\ c ministers as colleagues and 30 churches to supervise. His present circuit. Carlton, ii. chicles Queen's College, so that it is virtually the unhcrsity circut. Mr Williams was for three years, secretary of tho Victorian and Tasmanian Conference, ::r,d was afterwards elected to the preiid'nev. At tho Brisbane General Conference' in 1901 lie was elected secretary of tlie General C'onf< vpiice, and was re-elected to the same po-ition by tho Melbourne Confeionci' in 1904 While superintendent of the Bendigo circuit the new president was elected a Fellow of the Lmnean Soojotv, a.s the result of a contribution on scientific (?oologicall linos, on which occasion the late Baron Mueller was one of his sponsors. Mr Williams i» considered to be the equal of Dr Fitehett in debate, and is a sound preacher. The election io a popular one. . The Rev. Dr H. \oungman (president of the Queensland Conference), the nc* sxc retarv, is one of the beet-known numsieia in the Methodist Church in Queer si aik.l, and has occupied the posiiion of pies.derit in the Northern State on throe different ooca*ions. Ho was tho first president of the United Methodist Conference, after the union had been consummated between The Primitive Methodists, the I'mteel Free Methodists, and the Weslcvan Churches, and during the time the movement for ( „.'on was in progress was the trusted loader" in his church, and much of tho shaping of the constitution adopted was m his hands. He* entered the ministry in New South Wales in ISZI, and after fcravel-

ling in several important circuits there, he was appointed in 1888 to the Albert Street Church in Brisbane. The doctor's degree was conferred upon him by a Canadian University, and it was an honour much appreciated and deserved. Though nearing his sixtieth year his energies are unabated, and he will render still much solid service to his denomination.

THE FIRST BUSINESS SESSION.

The first business session was held today. The president (Rev. W. Williams, F.L.S.) presided. The first hour was occupied by the administration of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The Rev. S. Lawry (New Zealand) was appointed one of the assistant secretaries. Greetings were received from the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, and the Religious Society of Friends of Australia.

METHODISM AND MILITARISM.

The question of the limitation of armaments was before the Conference in the form of a communication from the Religious Society of Friends of Australia. The society submitted a minute which had recently been formulated by the National Council of Peace Societies in Great Britain and adopted by many Christian organisations for presentation to the British Government in connection with ite declared intention to propose a limitation of armaments at the coming International Conference at The Hague. It suggested that the opportunity should not be allowed to pass without an effort to " strengthen the hands of the Home Government in ite endeavour to give effect to principles which were too often overlooked in international discussions," and that a voice from Australasia, and from so widely rcprevsentad c a body as the Conference, would not be without influence at the present juncture. The minute expressed thankfulness* for the British Government's proposal, the hope that it would result in the adoption of seme practical scheme, that the system of international arbitration might be further developed, and that arrangements might be made for the periodical meeting of The Hague Conference. The Conference unanimously approved of it, and it was resolved that the decision should be communicated to the British Prime Minister by oable.

The personnel of the Methodist Conference is representative of the great Methodist Church. New South Wales numbers in her ranks many who have done noble service for th« Church. The Rev. Dr Brown, the " grand old man" of Australian Methodist missions, is one of these. After a career of 47 years' foreign mission work, having gone through th« cares and anxieties, the privations, and dangers of pioneer times, he is as keenly interested in the progress of the work now as when on one memorable day he headed an expedition in New Britain. By the side of Dr Brown may be placed Dr Moulton, who looks back over a similar record to that of his co-worker with satisfaction and thankfulness. What Dr Moulton's sacrifices have been it is hard to say. A member of an illustrious family — a brother is one of the Lord Justices of England, and his father was of the company of New Testament revisers — he sacrificed the opportunities of civilisation to open the way to the darkskinned islander. Another figure in New South Wales representatives, whose work speaks for itself, should be the most easily identifiable of all. " Why, there's General Booth !" remarked a lady who had seen Rev. W. G. Taylor for the first time, probably. And, at first glance, the mistake might be pardoned. There is something in btaturo and cast of features which makes such an error in identification justifiable, and it may be that in the same mould the leaders of philanthropic work are metaphorically cast, for the superintendent of the Ocntral Mission seems to work nearer to Salvation Army methods than the head of any other charitable organisation in Australia. Rev. J. E. Carruthers's record for administration and his efforts in the interests of the Supernumerary Fund have earned for him a position of prominence. Just now Mr Carruthors is engaged on a proposal for the establishment of a Theological Institution at a cost of £20,000. Tho jauntiest man in the gathering is Rev. W. H. Bealo. If politic* should come the way of a misguided conference—as "it certainly then "will be— this gentleman and the Rev. John Penman (president of the State conference) will more than hold up their end. The laymen compile the man versed in law, the commercial man, and the politician, and these may be relied upon to talk when the conference is weary of welldoing-. Victoria's contribution to the Asembly is in niinv resect -> notable. After Dr Fitchett come-* tlie new president, the Rev. \V. Williams, described by his own friend' a.s a solid more than brilliant man. The one man whom the conference, as a whole, ii anxious to hear at his best, is a cleanshaven, thai |)-featured personage, the Rev. A. E. Albison. M.A., a comparatively \ountr nan said to be the mort eloquent and convincing of the Victorian Conference, lie it is who was recently selected to lal-e the morning service at tho MclIxjurne Central Mission, and to conduct the business services in tho dinner-hour. '■When he ta-lks." remarked a visitor the other day, "ho 'ays all that he intends to say, no more ; no le« ; and when ho has finished his congregations po away thinking new thoughts, and making new resolves which to their credit, many of them 'keep." The Rev. S. T. Withington is another strong man. with an exceedingly original fit\le, who v. ill kocp his State to the fore. South Au-tralia. has in the Rev. I. O. Rooney a gentleman with a peculiar hibtor\ 'Ho wa-. twin in the North of Irehind of Scottish Presbyterian ancestors, but was educated at Horton College, laamania. under the Rev. W. A. Quick. At the end of his year of probation in Victoria lie offered for mission woik in Fiji, and Mn<riilarly enourrh wa-, selected to euc<r<Td the Re. : Dr Thrown a.-, chairman of the New Rniii.n Mis-on 111-health forced hi iet in ii to colonial work. A gentleman of considerable scientific attainments, chiefly in tbe realm of philology, gcogravh\. and anthroiwlop-v. he may be rockonfMl ns one of the strongest men in tho larcrc company. Mr Rooney has given tv.o sons to tho Methodist ministry —the Rev. F L Rooney. of Adelaide, and the Rev. Ray Rooney (a missionary in the Solomon group). Dr Youngnian. the new secretary of tn© conference, h the mo-st influential of the Brisbane representative*. he R-ev. G. F,. Rowe will be his chief lieutenant. Mr Rowe was known for years in the West as "the only G. E." He exercised a great influence in West Australia. He was

transferred from that conference to Queensland in 1905.

The Daily Telegraph says that the New Zealanders are a typically aggressive lot. Their outburst at Friday's meeting beoause of their exclusion from the ranks of the speakers at the more important functions was an example of whM the conference might expect when the representatives of the Land of the Moa nave recovered their land legs and the occasion requires them to speak.

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW19070619.2.277

Bibliographic details

Otago Witness, Issue 2779, 19 June 1907, Page 53

Word Count
3,413

METHODIST CONFERENCE Otago Witness, Issue 2779, 19 June 1907, Page 53

METHODIST CONFERENCE Otago Witness, Issue 2779, 19 June 1907, Page 53

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