THE CHURCH

Southland Times, Issue 20496, 26 May 1928, Page 12

THE CHURCH

NEWS AND NOTES. FROM PULPIT AND PEW. The Rev. J. Carlisle will “Expose the Biggest Liar in Invercargill” in the Esk street Baptist Church on the Lord’s Day evening. All those interested in the significance of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh will be pleased to hear that next Tuesday evening a lecture is to be given in the Y.M.C.A. Hall on “The Great Pyramid and Fulfilment of Chronological Prophecy” by Rev. P. H. Pritchett of Christchurch. Mr Pritchett is a well versed and capable expositor of this subject, and his remarks should be well worth listening to. The ladies of the Esk Street Baptist Church are holding a sale in the Y.M.C.A. on Wednesday, May 30. The sale will be opened by Rev. J. Carlisle at 2.30 p.m. The jumble stall will be well stocked with garments which should prove attractive to mothers of families. In addition, there will be stalls of produce, cakes, and sweets, also Indian goods imported direct from Calcutta and Ceylon. A farewell will be tendered to the Rev. W. H. Norton, Mrs Norton and family by the parish of Centre Bush at a church social which is to be held in the Limehills Hall on Monday night, May 28, at 7.45. A good musical and elocutionary programme by Winton choir and others will be given. The Rev. W. Tanner of North Invercargill has been invited to address the gathering and the ladies of the congregation will provide supper. On Sunday morning next, May 27, at 11 a.m., the Rev. W. H. Norton who has received and accepted a call to the charge of Tapanui, will preach his farewell address in the Centre Bush parish church. The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper will be dispensed and all members of the parish are invited to be present. At 3 p.m. at South Hillend and at 7 p.m. at Centre Bush the Rev. A. C. Whitelaw M.A., the Young Men’s Bible Class travelling secretary, will address the congregation.

The Rev. A. C. Lawry of Dunedin is at present in Southland on Home Mission deputation work, and will preach at St. Peter’s Methodist Church on Sunday next at 11 a.m. and Central Methodist at 6.30 p.m. He is a very lucid, forceful and captivating speaker, whether in lhe pulpit or on the platform, and his lecture on Tuesday evening next at St. Peter’s Sunday School Hall on “Maoriland in the Brave Days of Old” will not only be instructive, but thrillingly interesting. The brief concert programme prior to the lecture will be by distinguished artists. Admission will be free to all and an offering for Home Mission funds will be taken up during the evening.

Dr J. W. Springthorpe recently gave a lecture in the chapter house of St., Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne, on “Doctor and Parson.” He said: “The Founder of our faith was the greatest Healer the world has ever known. Thp very terms of His mission implied a supernatural nexus, and, in my judgment, His therapy, scientifically applied, can, on acceptance, produce full and final satisfaction of all dissatisfaction on our immature planet. At present it is too much the doctor for disease, the ten commandments from the parson, and the masterweapon. psychology, in the untrained hand. Little wonder that restoration is so slow, and so incomplete.

Since the appointment of the Rev. V. R. Jamieson to the Nightcaps-Tuatapere district services have been held at Tuatapere Methodist Church on each Sunday afternoon. This week the Rev. Angus Mcßean of the Central Methodist Church, Invercargill, will occupy the pulpit and the services for the remainder of the quarter will be conducted by the Rev. V. R. Jamieson. On Thursday, May 17, in the Tautapere Presbyterian Church the Rev. R. D. McEwan of Edendale gave a lecture on the subject “How we got our Bible,” illustrated by lantern slides. Solos were sung by Mrs Nicholas (“Abide with Me”), the Rev. R. D. McEwan (“Star of Bethlehem”), Mr Higgins (“The Village Blacksmith”) and Mrs McEwan recited.

“The Bible in the World,” for February, a monthly record of the work of the British and Foreign Bible Society, states that with the cordial consent of the Bishop of Melanesia, the Society for Promoting Christian knowledge has asked the British Society to undertake the publication of a new edition of the Bible in the language called Mota, which has become the common speech in the Melanesian Mission. The first book of Scripture in this tongue was St. Luke’s Gospel, translated by the saintly John Coleridge Patteson (afterwards Bishop) and published by the Mission in 1864. This was followed by other New Testament books similarly prepared. In 1873 the first Old Testament books translated by R. H. Codrington and John Palmer, were issued at Norfolk Island. Then the S.P.C.K. undertook the publication, completing the New Testament in 1885 and the Bible in 1912. The S.P.C.K. have now handed over the plates of this Bible to the British and Foreign Bible Society. Dr W. B. Selbie, principal of Mansfield College, Oxford, addressing a University extension meeting on “The Bible and Theology,” said that the Bible was riot a f Uook, but a library covering more than 1000 years of religious development. That the contents of the Bible included the crudest anthropomorphic religion was due to the fact that God always spoke to people in the language that they could understand. He wished God’s representatives, the parsons, would do the same. God would not speak to the early Hebrews of man’s beginning in terms of biology. The Bible was not like a botanical museum, but like a country lane in which one could see all the museum specimens, but not dried and classified. No man of science or philosopher would dream of saying that he had reached finality, and Christian people should be the first to realize that they must be open for more light and that God was still unfolding Himself.