CHANGING WORLD

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18180, 30 August 1933, Page 11

CHANGING WORLD

MISSIONARY FIELD REVIEW. BY BISHOP i “Converts are not coming in to the I church as they should; the whole race lof the world 'is changing, aud a new • world civilisation is developing, one • that is largely on materialistic lines, ’ said Bishop West-Watson, ot Christ- . church, in a sermon delivered at bt, 1 Mark’s Church, Wellington, when the 7 annual provincial service ill cornice ion > with the New Zealand Anglican Board oE Missions was held.? “It is not so very long ago since tin* ' world began to change,' he said; ‘ be--1 lore the East ‘began to awake, offering 1 more resistance to the claims of Christ ■ and missionaries. It began to become 1 self-conscious, looking more to its ancient traditions and history. At that time we first began to realise the tremendous importance of building up the new church. Then came the great crash of war. Western prestige sank ' in the eyes of the East, which tended towards ‘self determination, thus again influencing our missionary fields. In some measure the rising feeling among the more educated in those lands _is perhaps what they think - the badly mannered way in which the Gospel is preached among them. The change had also occurred in the West, Bishop West-Watson continued. The missionary battlefield became new - jly aligned, reverting in part lo the old ■ Christian countries, and it was a much 1 more difficult battle. There was now a new feeling among'Christians that not merely the individual should be saved : but man us a whole—the world as a i Whole. It was a time of supreme difficulty, when the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit was greatly needed. Peaceful penetration by the chtirch was not ! enough. As Christ could not penetrate i peacefully then His church could not hope to do it .

“I thank God for our missionaries to-day,” he concluded. “They are bej coming more and more men who arc ambassadors of peace, who hold nations . together. They have some of the finest and noblest work in the world to do—work that claims men of special gifts and the greatest ability.”