THE CHURCH

Southland Times, Issue 22333, 26 May 1934, Page 10

THE CHURCH

NEWS AND NOTES i FROM PULPIT AND PEW. Dr. Winnington-Ingram has been Bishop of London for 33 years, and is 76 years of age. It is more than 50 years since he was ordained to the ministry. The revival meeting still continues in Everybody’s Hall, Tay street. Last Sunday the speaker, Mr Roberts, spoke on the five judgments. The speaker for the coming meeting will be Mr Dunwoodie. The Rev. F. C. Spurr, in a letter to the “Australian Christian World,” affirms that preaching in France has a greater influence than preaching in Australia has, and that the radio there gives more prominence to it than the radio in Australia does. Attention is directed to the Salvation Army advertisement in another column, setting out the list and subject of special meetings to be conducted by Major and Mrs Bear. At 3 p.m. the Major will deal with the world-wide subject of interest, “The Roman Empire and the Jewish Peoples.” The preacher for to-morrow at the North Baptist Church will be the Pastor who will speak in the morning on “The fire that was never to go out,” and in the evening on “Do people miss their last opportunity?” The Blina Evangelist, Mr A. Johnston, will commence his mission in the church on June 10. Bible Sunday will be observed at the Esk Street Baptist Church to-morrow by the Rev. W. E. Lambert. Services at 11 a.m. and 6.30 p.m. A second address on “Is the Bible the Word of God” will be given by the pastor at the evening service. Mr W. J. Ward preaches at Georgetown at 11 a.m. and the Rev. W. E. Lambert at West Plains at 2.30 p.m. Wise Sayings.—“ Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy, and the dividing of our grief.” . . . “No one can be of much use in the world till he has had knocks.” . . . “Nothing tells so quickly what we are ourselves as what we say of others.” . . . “To every man there comes a day when he must separate himself from others and act alone.” The monthly musical service will be held in the Central Methodist Church on Sunday night. In addition to an anthem and a hymn study by the choir the Rev. E. B. Chambers will sing the solo “Open the Gates of the Temple.” Many are finding these services a source of inspiration and it is anticipated there will be a large congregation on Sunday night. The preacher’s theme is “The secret of Mastery.” A warm welcome is extended to all visitors. The Rev. O. S. Pearn will conduct both services at St. Peter’s Methodist Church to-morrow. In the morning the theme will be “The Spirit and the Race” and in the evening the fifth study in the Sermon of the Mount entitled “Mourners with Mourning Faces” will be dealt with. During this service special reference will be made to the late Mrs C. Anderson, who has been associated with St. Peter’s Church for nearly forty years. The choir will sing Woodward’s “The Radiant Morn,” and the quartette party Sullivan’s “The Long Day Closes.” Empire Sunday occurs once annually, meaning something or nothing to the nation and the church; yet nations to use a slang expression, “have gone to the pack” because they cared for none of the things that make for righteousness. Two ideals face Britons to-day, that incorporated in the late Sir Edward Elgar’s song, “Land of Hope and Glory, make us mightier yet,” and that of the historian J. R. Seeley, “Bigness is not necessarily greatness.” At First Church the family diet theme at 11 a.m., will bear on these ideals—at 6.30 p.m. the anthem will be Root’s “Strains melodious” and the subject relating to the Empire—“ Man shall not live by bread alone.” Mr Andrew Johnston, the blind soldier evangelist, commenced a mission in the Otautau Methodist Church on Sunday evening, when the building was well filled. The speaker took for his opening address, “From darkness to light,” while Mrs Johnston sang the solo, “Tlie Healer and His Touch.” The meetings have been continued through the week, visitors being present from Nightcaps, Isla Bank and Dipton, and these have been very successful. Last night the Scouts, Guides and Cubs paraded to the church for a young people’s service, and on Sunday evening after the church service a parade of returned soldiers is to take place at the hall. On Tuesday afternoon Mr Johnston visited the Otautau School and delivered a special address to the children on the work of the Blind Institute and the Braille system, which was very much appreciated by the boys and girls. WHICH ART IN HEAVEN. By Silent Peter. If you were to write down all you honestly and sincerely believe, you would probably be able to fill volume after volume. Yet if you started to make a note of everything you actually know to be a fact, you might have difficulty in covering more than a few sheets of paper. You cannot be said to know anything until you are able to demonstrate it. It does not satisfy your mind to “believe” there is a heaven; you want to know, in actual fact, that heaven is a reality and not a fond dream of the credulous. You know that if heaven is a Truth, then it must be subject to the unchanging laws of Truth and be demonstrable to the mind of man’. You do not, of course, expect heaven to be something that may be touched or seen per medium of the physical senses. You know that the physical body is a passing thing, discarded when no longer needed; and you are fully alive to the fact that a heaven that could be apprehended by the physical senses would be a very transitory affair. No; what you want to be assured is that heaven is just as clearly demonstrable as are other aspects of nature, which, although impossible to “handle” in any way, you know to be in existence just as surely as you are, yourself. Now the fact of heaven is demonstrable. It is attainable by the simplest child. Heaven does exist, has always existed and will ever continue to exist; and the first steps to be taken, to prove this fact, are so simple that some of us are tempted to be scornful in regard to taking them. In whatsoever things are true; in whatsoever things are honest; in whatsoever things are just; in whatsoever things are pure; in whatsoever things are lovely; in whatsoever things are of good report, there is heaven; there is GOD. Heaven is not a place. It is a condition, eternal in duration. You cannot place any limits tb heaven, in Time, or Space, or Operation. It belongs to YOU and no one can rob you of it. When you pray to OUR FATHER, WHICH ART IN HEAVEN, from the depths of your sorrow, from the deep, strange places of your suffering, from the shackles of your wrong-doing and your wrong-thinking, God lifts you from your condition of sorrow, of pain, of misery, into a condition of Peace and of Truth. Take the first few steps, and you will not need to demonstrate the Truth of heaven: it will itself demonstrate its reality within you. And remember this: that in attaining heaven, yourself, you will most certainly bring it into the lives of those around .you.