THE CHURCH

Southland Times, Issue 25417, 19 October 1935, Page 12

THE CHURCH

NEWS AND NOTES. FROM PULPIT AND PEW. An audience of 80 enjoyed the Rev. A. W. Armstrong’s stirring address in Everybody’s last Monday. Mr Walter Roberts will be the speaker at next Monday’s Fellowship meeting.

The service to-morrow morning at St. Peter’s Methodist Church will be conducted by the Rev. F. E. Foot. A special ladies’ service will be held in the evening when the speaker will be Mrs F. Pasley, assisted by the Young Women’s Bible Class.

In an address to the Clerical Association, Canon Fancourt mentioned four “horrors” of unemployment —penury absence of congenial company outside the home, the loss for many of a purpose in life and the “horror” of getting used to it and so of becoming useless members of society.

“I am passionately keen on the reunion of Christian people in this country (England),” said the Anglican Bishop of Coventry recently, . “and, although there are other ways and methods of attaining it, it is acting together when and how we can, and as much as we can, that is going to draw us nearer to that reunion for which I pray.”

“The bigot,” says A.G.C., caustically in the “Christian World,” “usually wears second-hand clothes, and because he is conscious that they are a poor fit, he suffers from a sort of mental inferiority complex which makes him nervously intolerant of others. The aggressive, self-conscious and humorless dogmatism which is such a bane in ecclesiastical relationships has its origin here.”

President Roosevelt was asked recently by an American clergyman to name his favourite hymn. His reply was “Art thou weary; art thou languid?” This hymn was originally composed by a monk of the eighth century named Stephen. It was paraphased by an English divine and scholar of the earlier "part of last century— Dr Neale—and it is his paraphase of it with which we are familiar.

A thanksgiving service is to be held in St. Matthew’s Church on October 29, at the conclusion of the mission work of the Church Army. A permanent New Zealand branch of the Church Army is to be established in the Dominion with its headquarters, temporarily at least, in Auckland. It is expected that the movement will embrace and develop two phases of Christian work—the social and the evangelistic.

At First Church, Sunday being the nearest to the 130th anniversary of Trafalgar, as in previous years the theme will bear on the subject of duty, to God, our neighbour, and ourselves. Duty in action may vary according, to circumstances, but the underlying principle always remains the same. Nelson’s attitude was “My God and my country”; Napoleon’s was inclined to be “Myself and my country.” At the 11 a.m. family diet, the theme will be: “What has Christianity done for you?”

Colonel George Davis, the 1935 Apostle of Fire, official representative of General Evangeline Booth, is conducting a campaign at the Salvation Army Citadel, and has already spoken to large crowds in Invercargill, including 1000 young people. The meetings are advertised in.the Church Services, and the public is invited to attend these meetings. The colonel is a most attractive and arresting speaker, with an easy, natural individual style, and possesses a fund of convincing Bible, logic and illustrative material. An altar service will take place at the evening meeting. The Rev. C. J. To.cker, of St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church, has been invited to be the preacher at the 83rd anniversary services of Port Chalmers’ Presbyterian Church to-morrow. The services at St. Paul’s will be taken by the Rev. J. Gilman Dunn, of Port Chalmers. Mr Dunn, who followed the legal profession before entering the ministry, is carrying on a successful ministry at Port Chalmers. Prior to going to Port Chalmers he was the successor of the Rev. John Kilpatrick in the pastorate of Green Island. A man of attractive personality, who carries a pervasive Christian influence with him, Mr Dunn is a welcome visitor to Invercargill.

No doubt most people have read Evangeline Booth’s statement when she returned to London, “We are living in a God hungry world that is disappointed in material things. But there is a great turning to religion among the youth.” Did they also read this about the King and Queen? “They are regular church attenders and have brought their children up in a sincere and quiet piety. When presiding at an annual meeting of the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Duke of Gloucester said: ‘lt would be a happier and more peaceful world, if in our personal and public affairs, we all made the Bible our final court of appeal, and accepted its ruling as the law of life.’ ” One thanks God for such a message coming from such a source, and one prays that the Bible may yet indeed be the final court of appeal in such instances.