THE CHURCH

Southland Times, Issue 22215, 6 January 1934, Page 9

THE CHURCH

NEWS AND NOTES FROM PULPIT AND PEW. The pastor of the North Invercargill Baptist Church will deliver New- Year addresses to-morrow at the church, “A Command to Advance” being the theme for the morning meeting ana “The Most Important Thing for. 1934” the subject for the evening service. Divine services will be conducted in the Esk Street Baptist Church to-mor-row by the Rev. W. E. Lambert at 11 a.m., morning communion; 6.30 p.m., preacher, Rev. H. E. Edridge, of Dunedin; Georgetown, 11 a.m., Mr W. Roberts, and West Plains, 2.30 p.m., Mr R. J. Wise. A welcome awaits you at these services.

At First Church on Sunday the themes at the Diets of Divine Worship will be in keeping with the season. It has been declared that the success of the world in the days ahead is entirely in the hands of Christians. A declaration like this must make the New Year for all Christians a very solemn period; the subjects are accordingly, “Hope” and “Leadership.”

. . . What I am saying is not of any person, is not the creation of an individual, but it is the eternal truth. And in order to understand the absolute and the eternal, you must have had the shadow of doubt cast upon your understanding. And as most people are afraid of doubt, think it is a crime, a sin, they put a.’'ay doubt from their minds, and hence grow strong in their narrowness, in their pettiness, in their worship of personalities, in their shelters which breed decay and comfort. Whereas, if you invite doubt into your heart and into your mind, and if you pursue that doubt logically into all the corridors, avenues and shades of the mind and the heart, and relentlessly scrutinize and examine all things, then what remains will be of your own knowledge and hence the absolute, the eternal.—Mr J. Krishnamurti.

Under the heading, “Why Not Christ as Dictator?” Commissioner David C. Lamb, London, has a thoughtful and suggestive article in the New Zealand “War Cry” of the 16th instant. Here is one of the things he says, and how true it is. “My own observations have shown me that drunkenness, arising from the misuse of alcohol, is declining fast, but people are becoming more and more drunk with speed. So intoxicated are they with the idea of haste that, like all drunkards, they forget their manners.” Quoting an authority on motoring who had used the roads for over a million miles as saying recently in the- Press, “Most of the danger of the roads is caused by rudeness,” he goes on. “Rudeness is only one of the manifestations of selfishness.” The cure for the rudeness and the selfishness behind it, he suggests, is the application to themselves by motorists of the Sermon on the Mount.

Mr Harry Jeffs, who was for many years editor of “The Christian World Pulpit” (Ernest H. Jeffs, his son, is the present editor), has written his memories of “Press, Preachers and Politicians.” The book has just been published by the “Independent Press,’’ and treats of the long period 1874 to 1932. Mr Jeffs estimates that he read at least 100,000 sermons during the 38 years he had charge of “The Christian World Puplit.” He quotes the following sentences from an impassioned address which he heard Keir Hardie give to Belgian Socialists at their headquarters in French Flanders, the Maison du Peuple. “It was reading the Gospels, and studying the story of the Person of Jesus Christ, and His spirit and teaching that brought me into the Labour movement. . I tell you brothers of the Continental countries, that without the spirit and teaching of Jesus Christ, you will fail to realize your ideal of the reconstruction of society on a juster and more human basis.”

Remarking that God is conceived by some religious people as out of relation to, or at least indifferent to most of the elements in a normal human life, Dr. Herbert Gray continues in a foreword what he had occasion to write: “Can we relate God to beauty ? If not we shall find ourselves shut up to a narrowed life, as many of the Puritans were. Can we relate God to sex? If not we shall never attain to unified lives and shall remain the unhappy victims of fears, repressions, strains and shames. Can we relate God to the normal human activities of production, distribution and exchange? If not we shall inevitably remain unreconciled to life—strange pilgrims in the world though we profess to believe He made it. Can we relate God to scientific research? If not we shall succumb to the delusion that science is the enemy of religion and be very unhappy in this scientific age. Can we relate God to friendship, and family joys, and sports, recreation, hobbies and laughter? If not our religion is sure to be joyless and narrow. The real problem is to learn to think of God as He was manifested in our real human life. If we can do that—if we can believe in a God like Christ we shall find that all normal human life is redeemed, and life will be both full and joyful.”

ST. ANDREW’S CHURCH, OTAUTAU.

(From Our Correspodent.)

Following are the results of the catechism examination in connection with St. Andrew’s Sunday School, Otautau: Class A, Eric Batchelor 1, Yvonne Paulin 2. Class B, William Batchelor 1, Agnes Jaulin 2, Sybil Norman 3, Mary Cartwright 4. Attendance: Class A, Eric Batchelor 1, Jean Batchelor 2, Margaret Kennedy 3. Class William Batchelor 1, Mary Cartwright 2, Agnes Paulin 3. Class 1, Clarence Batchelor 1, Noel Batchelor 2, Betty Aitken 3, Thelma Pulley, James Aitken, Owen Aitken and Joan Riddell (equal). Special Prizes: Yvonne Paulin (progress), Lindsay Silverwood, Vernon Silverwood and Trevor Silverwood (conduct).