THE HULDAH OF ENGLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3614, 19 June 1923, Page 61

THE HULDAH OF ENGLAND.

By

Jessie Mackey

We are apt to forget, after a prolonged insistence on the ordained doimnace of man, that Holy V\ lit lays down the fullest precedent for woman’s rule in matters spiritual as well as temporal. Deborah’s battle-call has caught the imagination of the Church Militant in all ages. But whoever wrote a- sermon on Deborah the Judge, though such she undoubtedly was? Joan of Arc has long been beatified, whereas the idea of a woman bishop would scare orthodoxy into delirium. Yet such a trust seemed natural to the still more advanced Hebrews who set Huldah, the prophetess, aunt of the prophet Jeremiah, high in the “college” *to which the Kings of Judah repaired for spiritual guidance. Less defined, but similar in essence, was the prestige of Priscilla in the young Church of tile Apostles. We ourselves are just battling free from the long unchallenged doctrine of masculine domination in spiritual things. The ordination of women to the ministry hardly causes a tremor in the free churches now. Two women have even stormed the Anglican pulpit on occasion, though not yet commanding the approval of the Church as : whole. Miss Picton Turbervill has been heard to edification, and never more so than when privileged at Geneva t-o preach in Calvin’s pulpit. But to Miss Maude Royden belongs a more sustained and definite standing as a pastor. It is tme that only for one brief while, under one daring bishop, has she been accredited as an Anglican preacher. But Maude Royden’s Clirisbanity is too full and universal to cling to one fold ; her mission was effectively conceded when she was appointed copastor of the City Temple, London, some years ago-. A short experience of pillar to post amid the timid reservations of the English hierarchy ended in her taking possession of the Guildhouse, Victoria, where she is heard Sunday after Sunday, most law-abiding of all pastors beyond the law of synod or presbytery.

The Guildhouse is a small, plain, white church, owing not one fraction of interest to visible art, although Maude Hoyden's is peculiarly an advanced art-gospel. But she is content to leave her co-adjutor—-her curate, if you will, —Dr Percy Dearmer, to specialise on the assthetia side. If little that is artistic is seen, much is heard in the musical service of the Guildhouse. The little book of hymns used there is a collection of gems unknown else where, set to music haunting in its appeal. The short service, simply and beautifully rendered, is founded on the Prayer Book. But it is the preaching of Maude Royden that draws the more spiritual souls in London alter her to the little w-hite church. She does not use one catch-plirase or revolutionary aid to fill the pews. It is a woman’s church, as the new-comer gathers from watching the bright young girls in their quaint uniform of soft blue who show the worshippers to seats and attend to the. usual duties of beadle or elder in service hours. The congregation is largely feminine; about one hearer in five is a man. Nothing restrietively feminine is preached ; it is simply that the false lines of sex demarcation in the Church have disappeared with every suggestion of creed or caste division. No one could guess that the magnetic woman whose face is full sunshine and address is breezy comradeship has been a martyr to pain all her crippled life. She stands to speak, however, —a neat, natty figure, in a dark gown, with closefitting cap, bonnet, or hat —call it which you will, —the whole effect conveying more a hint than a- dominance of pastoral garb, even as the tenor of the service convevs consecration without conventionality. But the soul of Maude Royden, the deep well of Christian energy, hope, and jov that she is—that is what manes this tiny Guildhouse one of the touchstones of religious life in England and beyond. When the writer heard her a year ago she had but newly returned from America, and spoke with singular tact and force on the problems overseas. She ’had preached to a .negio audience, and li:rd America s shadow oe-t-ween her and the s-un in that hour. She spoke earnestly, hopefully on Prohibition. Now, as* she denounced with sudden lire the shallow, cubbish railleries of irresponsible English Anti s the darkening shadow of England was between her and the sun. Wise words there were on other Atlantic problems and intc-r----ational perplexities —a prayer fur tortured nations seeking freedom and for full-fed Powers losing the only freedom that counts. Maude Royden is a prophet, the accepted woman prophet of England. Huldah speaks again in an abounding knowledge and sympathy that corrects Hebraic narrowness,* while emulating Hebraic valiancy for truth. Her strong, vital, onward gospel lias been leavening England for years past. Much of it ;• epitomised in an address she has recently given in Toronto. Canada. Her subject was “Can We Set the World in Order? ’ She speaks with full understanding of Europe’s desperate plight, beggared in estate because first beggared in soul. She cannot but interject the doubt, “If in this awful race of life and death we are net too late,” into a glorious forecast. She senses a great silent revolution, which even in Europe is heaving spiritually under the visibly appalling mass of false thinking, avarice, hatred, and revenge. Roundly she attacks the pseudo-religion that, in accepting the evil of the world -is inevitable, bows to “the will of God. - Such a resignation is deadly heresy. She foresees in the material world the approaching victory of atomic energy, solving the material problems now constricting our life. This realisation of scientific lay must be paralleled by the realisation of spiritual law in reconstruction. With edged satire she touches on the anomaly of ° “rows and rows of liealthy-looking people all standing up to sing about how perfectly gorgeous it would be if we were all dead.” The world cannot be saved till we plant the strong faith of the scientific man in science in the politician who at present lias no faith in politics. Under politics, under religion, under all life there is law. The Lord of Law is the God who is Love. There is in this vast storehouse of energy every force needed to build up the world on lines of dazzling and abiding splendour. \\ e must realise that the universe moves according to law, and that law is Love. Will England, will Europe, will America, heed this new Huldah. prophesying a reign of law unbounded by the narrowing” deflecting law of the scribes? Has the order to which Europe and we ourselves belong set Law at nought so completely tliat. world-reconstruction is at last beyond us? (Maude Royden lias earned the right to hope. Her life is Law, tireless Law; and Law is Love.

Serious damage to a large pig sty at (lie Boys’ Training Farm was done by lightning during a thunderstorm at Levin last week. The iron roof of the sty. th.e measurement of which was 42ft by 56ft, was torn completely off, and, according to an eye-witness of the incident, the sheets of iron were hurtled through the air. and the fragments were strewn over the ground for a distance of 150 yards. Kiwis are reported to be plentiful in the Rawliituroa State Forest reserve at the head of the Wailotnra River, and recently several albino specimens have been reserved.