THE CHURCH

Southland Times, Issue 20615, 9 February 1929, Page 12

THE CHURCH

GENERAL NEWS AND NOTES.

FROM PULPIT AND PEW.

Is there a God? The question of generations, will be the subject by Ensign Friberg at the Salvation Army to-morrow.

In connection with the social work of the Church of Scotland, a women’s employment bureau has been opened in Glasgow. There is no rival faith to Christianity. But there is a powerful, insidious, and omnipresent opponent-—-Materialism.—The Guardian.

The Rev. S. Bailey will conduct both services at St. Peter's Methodist Church on Sunday next. A sincere welcome is extended to all.

Mr Thomas Hinwood, who died at Broughton, Hants, aged 89 years, was for no less than 60 years a Methodist local preacher and Sunday school superintendent.

’ Miss Vera Findlay, M.A., who is 24 years of age, has been called to the pastorate of Partick Congregational Church. She is the first woman in Scotland to till such a position. The church has a membership of 606.

The morning service at the Esk street Baptist Church to-morrow will be conducted by the Rev. M. W. P. Larcelles. Mr Larcelles’ is the general secretary of the New Zealand Baptist Union, and is a powerful preacher. The evening service will be conducted by the pastor, the Rev. J. Carlisle. His subject will be “An Official Opening.” The death of Dr Reuben Torrey, in North Carolina, at the age of 72 years, recalls the fact that some 25 years ago he was connected with the Torrey-Alexander Mission, that visited New Zealand. Later he was dean of the Bible Institute at Los Angeles, and a champion of Fundamentalism in the United States. It was the late D. L. Moody who introduced Dr Torrey to evangelistic work. Archdeacon D. G. Joyce, who has been appointed Bishop of Monmouth, is one of the greatest scholars in the Church of Wales. The late W. E. Gladstone made him warden of the famous St. Deinols Library at Harwarden. Afterwards Dr Joyce was principal of Lampeter College. After resigning that position, Dr Joyce was Archdeacon of Pembroke. He is a bachelor, and does not speak Welsh. The Rev. Angus Mcßcan will conduct both services at the Central Methodist Church, Leet street, to-morrow. In the morning he will speak on “Some Elements of Apostolic Power”, and the evening subject will be “The Thirst of the Soul.” The choir will sing the anthem, “The Sun shall be no more thy Light by Day.” Sunday Schools re-open to-morrow after the summer vacation, and the Sunday School picnic takes place next Saturday, 16th instant, at the Bluff. Enrolment of students in the first year of Scverence Union Medical College, Seoul, Korea, doubled last term, indicating the strength in store for the Christian medical profession of that land. A new development is in the psychiatric department, where Government assistance in financing the care of mental patients has lately been sanctioned. Income of the college, the hospital, and the drug department is increasing sufficiently to offset for the moment a decrease in support from missionary funds.

The Rev. Arthur Pringle, speaking at a church in Torquay, said that the Church had allowed itself to be brow-beaten too much. Why, he asked, should the casual, or even considered, utterances of famous authors have more interest, grit and significance than the people who had been trained for the job? It seemed that they failed in the pulpit to have grit, interest, and bite in the way they put things. A man who really preached—uttered his whole soul and conscience, and mind and spirit—would get a full congregation. The Society of Servants of Christ (Christa Seva Sangh) has been holding some meetings in England. This is a company of Indians and Englishmen living in close fellowship, having its home at Poona. Within it are two Orders —a Brotherhood following the Evangelical Counsels, giving their lives to prayer, study, and active works, and an Order of Householders for married people, who desire to live lives of simplicity consecrated to Christ and His service, while yet working for their own support. Later on there may also be a Sisterhood living and working with the other Orders. Dr Minnie Varley, representative of the Sudan Interior Mission, will visit Invercargill next week and will address several meetings including two lantern lectures, one illustrating the title "Savages made Saints” and the other "Opening Abyssinia.” With its teeming population of over 60,000,000, mostly Moslem, this great area extending into Abyssinia offers big opportunities for Gospel work and Dr Varley, with her knowledge of the needs and opportunities of this little known land, has a thrilling story to tell. Watch the advertisements. Plans for the building of one of the largest Catholic universities in the world have just been announced by the Jesuit authorities of Loyola College, California, states The Month. The site covers six hundred acres in the Playa Del Ray hills, southwest of Culver City, and overlooking the Pacific. The first unit of the university will include nine buildings, which will cost about £1,000,000. Eleven other buildings will be added afterwards, and the total cost will be about £3,000,0000. Three of the nine buildings, comprising the first unit, will be ready for occupation on September 1. It is proposed to build one of the most beautiful and imposing churches in America on the ocean side of the university, with a tower, from which a searchlight will throw its light far out to sea. The plans also provide for a huge athletic stadium with a seating capacity of 60,000. When completed, the university will accommodate ten thousand students.

Referring to the death of Bishop Wallis, the Guardian says:—ln 1895, the year of his consecration as Bishop of Wellington, a letter appeared in these columns from the present. Vice-Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, which drew ■ attention to the great work done by the Rev. Frederic Wallis, the Dean of Caius, and it is as a dean an example to all other deans, that Dr Wallis, formerly Bishop of Wellington, New Zealand, will be remembered by generations of Cambridge men. But his disciplinary gifts were not all: a double first, in classics and theology, and the winner of the Carus, the Evans, and the Scholefield prizes, his intellectual attainment alone would have marked him out for a fellowship of the college, which he loved so dearly all his life. For sixteen years, from 1895 to 1911, he remained in New Zealand, where he soon established himself as a born leader of men. Then he came back to England to help his brother-in-law, Dr Wordsworth, Bishop of Salisbury, first as Archdeacon of Wilts, and .then as Archdeacon of Sherborne. In 1918 he retired, and since then had lived at Bournemouth.

The song of life is the force which is all the time running under life. All the different movements in nature have sound and colour as their expressions and accompaniments. There are others of which we knew nothing, but at least sound and colour are within our experience. It is possible to learn to hear something of the harmony of nature and to see something of its beauty and glory and order, and it is in that way more .than in any other that one may come to be quite certain that all things are working together for good, and that the order which underlies this apparent disorder is out of all proportion and in every way greater, more important, more effective. The disorder is nothing but a slight disturbance, foam on the surface; the real depth of the sea lies beneath, and that obeys the divine law perfectly, even though on the surface that law may seem to be set at naught. It is important for us to try, if we can, to sense

the reality which lies behind, to feel that which is incapable of being turned aside or disturbed in any wayv It is a great comfort, a great consolation, a great security, when once we can get into touch with this, and feel absolutely sure that everything is marching steadily on its way, and that therefore it does not matter what happens on the surface. All the time we are moving onwards towards unity with the One; we are moving towards the realization of that, and the One through us is developing His manifestation of Himself.— Bishop Leadbeater.