THE LOUD SPEAKER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3861, 13 March 1928, Page 26

THE LOUD SPEAKER.

INSTRUMENT OF THE ALMIGHTY. CHRISTCHURCH, March 8. “ Though motor cars have taken people away from the churches to the hills and beaches, they cannot take them entirely away from the radio loud speaker, which in itself forces the upset of bigoted denominationalism,” according to the Rev. Lionel B. Fletcher, president of the Congregational Union of New Zealand. Mr Fletcher, in his address to the annual assembly last night, drew a picture of the change which the motor car and the wireless set had wrought in the lives of the present generation. He said he was pleased that radio was working against any narrow denominationalism. “ I say it seriously, that it seems to me that it is God meeting the situation by placing in our. hands the means of reaching scattered people, with. His invitation. People fly off in their motor cars, but there is no place where they can escape the voice of the preacher, for practically everywhere the loud speaker is in use, and on Sundays the voice of someone proclaiming the truth as it is in Christ is heard. ■ “ But this is a serious test of our denominational system. Non-Anglicans now hear the dignified and well-ordered service of the cathedral as it comes over the air; followers of Christ now hear the Unitarian preacher; and Theosophist propounding his teaching; and here denominationalism is helpless.”