REV. R. J. CAMPBELL

Otago Witness, Issue 3224, 29 December 1915, Page 34

REV. R. J. CAMPBELL

DECISION TO JOIN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. (Fhom Oub Own Correspondent.)

LONDON, October 13

After a 13 years’ association with the City Temple the Rev. R. J. Campbell preached on Sunday his last sermons in this famous Nonconformist church. Speaking slowly and at rimes with considerable emotion, Mr Campbell bade farewell in the following words : “It is with a sad heart that I relinquish to-day my position as minister of this church, and it is difficult to find words wherewith to express adequately all that this parting means to me alter nearly 13 years of close and happy fellowship. This has been largely a personal congregation, necessarily so, and, therefore, the bond of attachment between minister and people is one of peculiar and sympathetic intimacy. I do not suppose any minister in the world has been more happily placed in this respect than 1. One has always been able to depend upon the loyalty and affection of one’s own people, and I confess I have never been able to preach anywhere else with the same freedom and power as in the City Temple and to this congregation. If I have been able to help any of you in any degree by what God has given me to say from this pulpit week by week during all these years, it is you who have made it possible yourselves, and I thank you very earnestly to-day for all that this has meant to a physically delicate and highly-strung man. But are we saying good-bye ? I do not think so. My ministry is not exactly a local ministry, and, perhaps, in the providence of God, if my health is sufficiently restored later on, one may hope to be heard in London from time to time and to greet again those who have been my faithful friends in this place and elsewhere. In what I have just said concerning my relationship with you my wife desires to be included. For all the kindness she has received since we came here, and never more than in the last few weeks, she wishes to tender grateful thanks. One thin" mere needs to be said. From what I have already indicated at the church meeting which received my resignation some weeks ago, and from paragraphs which have since appeared in the newspapers, you will not be surprised to learn that I am about to return to communion in the Church of England after an interval of 20 years spent in the Nonconformist ministry. A little later on, how soon I

:0 not at present know, I expect to revive ordination at the hands of the Bishop of Birmingham, and to be attached to the Cathedral Church in that city. Between the bishop and myself close sympathy exists on most qiiestions, and in going to him I am going to a friend. Into my reasons for taking this step I will not enter now; most of my friends know all about them already, and I earnestly desire to avoid giving any occasion for public controversy. No statement that one could danger, and I therefore ask to be allowed to remain silent. In this time of national trial it surely behoves all Christians to cultivate sympathy and brotherly kindness, to draw near to one another, not to hold apart. What I have just announced will depend upon the state of my health. My first endeavour must be to get well if I can, and that will take time. Bnt for the war I should have felt justified in taking a prolonged rest; as it is, I must not. I feel strongly that at this hour of grave peril to our Motherland, and of universal grief and affliction, every man and woman who can render any service, however small, is morally bound to do it. I am therefore going back to the troops and the field hospitals in France for about two months, and after that I hope to secure a few weeks of quiet and retirement before entering upon my new duties.”