THIRD EDITION BAPTIST PRESIDENT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17234, 14 April 1930, Page 13

THIRD EDITION BAPTIST PRESIDENT

THE REV. JOSEPH KEMP VISIT TO GISBORNE Gisborne is at present honored with the visit of the president of the Baptist Union, the ltev. Joseph W. Kemp, of the Tuberiiatle, AuciAaiul, He is staying here for several clays, and is the guest of Mr. and Mrs. K. T. Toneyditte. Mr. Kemp addressed two services m the Baptist Lhiireh yesterday, and will address other gatherings to-night, to-mor-row and Wednesday evenings, the closing address to contain a narrative of the progress of evangelical work in Edinburgh during a period of Mr. Kemp's ministry in that city. Some idea of the wide experience Mr. Kemp had acquired was given by the Rev. Oscar Aliwiight, when he introduced the Baptist Union’s president to the congregation at yesterday morning’s service. r lhe speaker said that he was in Scotland during the time of Mr. Kemp’s ministry hi Edinburgh, and he was able to speak of the great measure of spiritual uplift that resulted from the influence and efforts of ‘Mr. Kemp. The speaker remembered particularly the e% angelical revival in Edinburgh conducted by their visitor, who had also been in many other parts of the world before coming to New • Zealand and assuming control of the Tabernacle at Auckland, where he was held in partieularly high regard. Mr. Kemp spoke first to the young folk, doing so in a simple manner that must have broken down any embarrassment any of the little ones might have felt lot* 1 so important a visitor. Perhaps they would remember him most for the attention he drew to one of the children’s hymns, which he said he had brought from Chicago to Scotland, where it gained instant popularity. One elderly lady only that morning told hint she remembered* his ministry at \\oolwich mainly by that hymn, the Words of the' chorus heinl' “Step by Stop to the Glory Land." The children showed their interest by surging the hymn heartily. In his main address Mr. Kemp spoke impressively on the importance of the right type of prayer, taking _ his text from Philippians 1,9, “And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all jnclgment.” In ‘ modern prayer, he said, there was a dearth of bigness, a dearth of a desire to help others at the expense of popularity or that the other man may become better than oneself. A man was judged by his prayer life,, and he held up St. Paul’s exhortations’ to the Philippians as an example. A man could not always .be judged by his speech; one often heard it expressed ol some ministers that they Were "greater speakers. They may be great in the oratorical sense, hut their words may take little effect upon the congregations. The great Speaker, in his opinion, was the man who spoke so that he reached * the hearts of the people, even’ll the address was si failure oratorically. tie urged praver of the deeper kind, and said that he who moved in the depth of 1 prayer, moved on the heights of the miraculous. . There was a crowded congregation in the evening when Mr. Kemp spoke upon ‘ “Revival.” The 'Church of’ God. he said, 4jiad been kept alive.'bv periodical ro- - vivals,’’ ’’fctlieWHse it must have been . long extinct: People often deplored these days of lukewarmness and deadness in spiritual things. Through the, centuries there had been -ifJaEk and dreary days, for the world had the habit of “going to' the devil,” and it sometimes looked as if the. Church was going there too, but God had often punctuated history in giving the Church wondrous davs of revival and quickening God had raised up such men as Whitfield and the Wesleys, whose preaching had stirred and awakened the nation. .Such periods of revival Had saved the church from extinction'ris the spiritual awakening had swept through the land. After every fine o!l these periods there had a been a relapse into apostasy and infidelity. ’-The time was now long past for another revival. The Scriptures foretold that in > the “last days God would pour out His Spirit on all flesh. The speaker proceeded t o tell how suclij a revivhl of the church might he brought; about, through the reviving and awak-1 ing-of the spiritual life of the individual. The speaker concluded a powerful message with a strong appeal to Christian people to maintain the “upward loqk and to wait for the “breaking of the dav.” . if . Mr Kemp will speak again tins evening at 7.30 o’clock. ’ ■