THE CHURCH

Southland Times, Issue 20201, 11 June 1927, Page 12

THE CHURCH

GENERAL NEWS AND NOTES.

FROM PULPIT AND PEW. At the Esk Street Baptist Church the services will be conducted by the Rev. F. Sampson who will speak in the morning on “The Colossian Heresy” and in the evening on “Qualms of Conscience.” At the Leet street Methodist Church tomorrow the Rev. M. Ayrton, of Otautau, will conduct both services. His subjects for the morning and evening respectively will be: “The coming of God’s Kingdom,” and “A Christian’s Equipment.” The Centre Bush Presbyterian Church is observing Rally Month on the next four Sundays, June 12, 19, 26 and July 3, and an appeal is made to all members and adherents to make a special effort not only to attend these services themselves, but to bring others with them. On Sunday morning the Centre Bush choir will open the service with “The Glory Song,” and the subject of the address will be, “What to do with Life’s Burdens.” York Minster recently celebrated its thirteen hundredth anniversary. It was on Easter Day, April 11, 627, that the Saxon King Edwin was baptised by the missionary Bishop Paulinus in a little wooden church on the site of the present Cathedral. Within a generation or two this was replaced by a stone church, the remains of which are to be seen in the crypt of the glorious minster which is one of the treasures of England and the whole Anglican Communion. Dr William M. Forrest, Professor of Biblical History and Literature at the University of Virginia, in a book recently published, referring to Fundamentalists, states: “They assume an infallible Bible, which cannot be proved. Ultimately the force conservative religion has called to its aid will destroy it. Meantime it will alienate from itself all those who will to know the truth. If reached by liberal preaching and teaching such may be saved to Christianity. Otherwise the Fundamentalists will carry it unanimously that religion and ignorance are one and inseparable, now and for ever.”

The annual meeting of the Otautau Methodist Ladies’ Guild was held at the residence of Mr Lightfoot, and was attended by Rev. and Mrs Ayrton, Mesdames A. and E. Harrington, Wesney, T. and W. Hill, Collett, Brooker, Lightfoot and Miss Walker. The election of office-bearers for the ensuing year resulted as follows:—President, Mrs Ayrton; vice-president, Mrs W. Hill; treasurer, Miss Walker (re-elected) ; and secretary, Mrs Lightfoot; Mrs Brooker, the retiring president, was accorded a hearty vote of thanks for services rendered. A dainty afternoon tea was dispensed by the hostess. “I hope there will be no serious opposition in the Convocations to the passing of the new book. It would surely be a humiliating confession to make, that the Church of England, after many years of hard work and earnest consideration, cannot agree on a revision of its Book of Common Prayer. Too much attention has been given to a very small number of controversial points. The vast majority of the changes are noncontroversial, and most of these are manifest improvements. No changes are compulsory; any parish (and there will be very many) which prefers the old book can continue to use it.—Dean Inge. Father Hagen, S.J., Director of the Vatican Observatory, received a visit from the Holy Father on the completion of his 80th year. Pope Pius called upon Father Hagen during his daily walk in the Vatican garden and handed to the octogenarian scientist a large gold medal. Father Hagen was born in Austria on March 6, 1847, entered the Society of Jesus at the age of 16, and completed his scientific studies at Bonn and Munster. In 1888 he was appointed Professor of Astronomy at Georgetown University, U.S.A., where he began his famous “Atlas of the Variable Stars.” He returned to Europe in 1896, and in 1906 was appointed by Pius X. Director of the Vatican Observatory.

“Unemployment is a problem that tests us to the uttermost,” said the Rev. W. Russell Maltby, D.D., in the course of an address at Liverpool Wesleyan Central Hall. He added: “To solve the problem we need more than a revived confidence, and a new spirit in the community. If our nation at the end of the war had said: 'Now we are in a bad plight, let us give and take, and pull together,’ we would before now have broken the back of the problem. If trade union regulations had been relaxed and business principles modified, we could have absorbed the vast majority of the unemp’oyed, on the understanding, of course, that when things became normal, we were at liberty to return to the old methods.”

A notable African Has passed nway by the death of Sir Apolo Kagwa, for many years the Christian Prime Minister of Uganda. Sir Apolo, who was the first African to receive a K.C.M.G., was a scholar of the first band of missionaries who arrived in Uganda 50 years ago. Archdeacon Walker, who knew him well, states that he was for a time a sort of “Master of the Wardrobe” of the blood-thirsty King Mwanga. But Kagwa escaped the worst persecution and martyrdom which overtook so many of his young Christian companions. Nevertheless, though a man of magnificent physique, he showed to the end of his life signs of the ill-treatment he had received. He was one of the very few people in Uganda who have done any original writing in the native language. His “History of the Kings of Uganda” is now being reprinted in London for use in the schools of Uganda.

It was in 1882. A lad named Damulira, who was “reading,” fell ill. He begged a heathen friend, a lad of his own age, to call one of the missionaries, but his friend refused. Damulira grew worse, and at last, when dying, bade his heathen friend bring some water and sprinkle it over him in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Thus was the first convert in Uganda baptised before his death by a heathen. The object of Missions is not to make the native Christian something quite different in every respect to what he was as a heathen. The object is to preserve as far as possible all native customs, habits, and ideas which are not contrary to Christian teaching, and to help the convert to be a better aboriginal or Papuan or Bantu than he was before; not to become a half-baked European. Any mission which failed in this ideal would deserve and would be likely to get severe criticism.—(Ed “A.B.M. Review.”)

To those who read our newspapers and move about with open eyes it must be very evident that while the great majority of our population is clean-living, respectable and law-abiding, there is yet a number who are not so. To those social workers who are called upon to work amongst the victims of vice and generally to see the seamy side of things, it is very evident that there is much need for a general clean-up in certain directions. Moral standards are deplorably low with some people. Some have no respect for others’ property. We have warnings issued from the Press, Pulpit, Platform, Bench, Bar and Police, yet the unfortunates continue their downward way. What is the reason, the cause, the results, or the remedy? Hear Ensign Taylor at the Salvation Army at 7 p.m. on Sunday. Ensign Taylor has had a number of years’ experience in both islands in dealing with social cases of all descriptions and will give some of them on Sunday night. Come and hear him as he will not use hearsay, but actual facts.

The Church Rally Month services will be continued at St. Peter’s Methodist Church, when the Rev. S. Bailey will speak in the evening on the “Power of Home Life to Break or Make a Nation.” In the old patriarchial days where’er the (Christian) sojourner pitched his tent, there he built an altar to offer thanksgiving for past favours and to call for present needs. We need [religion in the home, bewtkQ theje is no

business in life so demanding and exacting as home-life. In nothing else in the world are there so many sacred interests and responsibilities. Nowhere in life do we meet such difficult and delicate duties. If a business venture miscarries the consequences are much disappointment and loss, perhaps hardships and suffering. But if the homelife is a failure, and is allowed to morally drift; who can tell what anguish and sorrow may result, for not only do the parental heads suffer but the hearts, lives and destinies of the dear ones that shelter beneath that family roof are imperilled. We need true Christian religion in our homes to enable both parents and children to play their part faithfully. More will be said upon this subject on Sunday next at Elies Road Methodist Church in the evening. A heart} - welcome is extended to all new-

CHURCH RALLY MONTH I Whatever else may be wrong with the churches —and as long as any institution is made up of human beings like ourselves there is bound to be a considerable element of imperfection about it—one thing that certainly calls for improvement is the at- . tendance of the people. It was the hope of I effecting an improvement in this direction that Church Rally Month was organised. It is first of all an appeal to church people to put a little more heart into their attendances, and not to allow themselves to be too easily kept from their places in God’s house. Many church members content themselves with being present at one service, who might with hardly any real sacrifice at all be there twice. Church Rally Month is a reminder to church members of their obligation and privilege in this matter. Nothing is more certain than that increased I faithfulness on their part would add to the inspiration of the services, would tone up the singing, and even help to improve the quality of the preaching. The more of themselves people put into their church, the more will they get out of it in help and joy and blessing. And then the appeal is addressed to nonchurchgoers. It is very generally recognised that the church has a real value in the life of the community. Most people freely admit that the world would be much worse off if all the churches closed their doors and abandoned all their activities. Surely those who acknowledge the value of the church should support it by their presence? It is quite easy to criticise the church, and point to her weakness and failures. But we have the highest example for our attendance. It is more than likely that the church in Palestine nineteen centuries ago was even more imperfect than the church in our midst to-day; yet our Lord was in the habit of being present in her services and participating in her worship. Sometimes people make the divisions of the Christian Church a reason or an excuse for complete aloofness from all association with the church. Perhaps the outsiders make more of these divisions than the insider does. This Church Rally Month, for exanjple, originated with the Invercargill Ministers’ Association. This association includes all the Presbyterian, Anglican, Methodist, Baptist and Church of Christ ministers and the captain of the Salvation Army. They meet monthly in the homes of the members alternately, and in perfect harmony and with much happiness they pray together, and discuss together all sorts of problems affecting their faith and work. It Is a very friendly and sociable gathering, much enjoyed by all. They represent different branches of the church of Christ, but they are united in the things that really matter, and in this Church Rally effort they whole-heartedly appeal to all who are definitely allied to any particular church to attend the services of that church. And at the same time they ask those who are outside all the churches to give definite consideration to the claims of the church, and this month attend some of the services. They are convinced that all need the church, and the church needs all. The reports indicate that a gratifying response to the invitation was made last Sunday, the general experience being that congregations were considerably above the average.

THE ENGLISH BIBLE An idea exists that the English authorised version of the Bible has come down to us in its present form, including the divisions in chapters and punctuation marks, directly from Heaven and that any criticism or analysis of the respective books of the Bible Is an unwarranted interference with the Divine plan. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and the New Testament in common as different from classical Greek. In order to read the Bible by a vast majority of people, it is imperative that the original must be translated into the English tongue. Quite recently the Bible was translated in twentieth century English by Dr Moffatt. In 1881 the revised version of the New Testa--1 nient was produced. In 1885 the revised version of the Old Testament. The revision was made necessary by the natural changes in language. The discovery of three manuscripts made the revised version possible, which were not accessible to the translators of the authorised version of King James. These were the Vatican, the Sinai tic and the Alexandrine manuscripts; the first being deposited in the Vatican library in Rome; the second is the property of the Library of Petrograd and the third can be seen at the British Museum. The authorised version appeared in 1611, the basis of which was the Bishops’ Bible, so called because it was produced by a council consisting of eight bishops. The Bishops’ Bible in turn was produced from an earlier translation known as Cranmer’s Bible. This in turn was made possible by the Bibles known as Tyndall’s and Coverdale’s. All these represent translations from the original languages into readable English. The average reader is therefore indebted to many translators in order to read and understand intelligibly the Scriptures. “Ye search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of Me.”