CHALLENGE SET UP BEFORE CHURCH

Southland Times, Issue 24057, 22 February 1940, Page 8

CHALLENGE SET UP BEFORE CHURCH

MODERATOR’S STATEMENT AT RECEPTION (United Press Association) WELLINGTON, February 21. “We are living in times when a challenge is set up before our church and all Christian churches of the land to be very firm and very true in thenwitness for Jesus Christ,” said the Moderator of the centennial General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (the Rt. Rev. J. Lawson Robinson) at the moderatorial reception tonight. Everyone was aware, and had given expression to thought on various occasions, he said, that the times were difficult for the people, but there was no difficulty which could not be overcome if-people realized their own personal responsibility not only to the congregation but to the wider interests of the church at large.

The Moderator said that there was no doubt in his mind that the future was secure if the people were faithful. The solution of the difficulties was in the Church’s own hands. It had a message which belonged to no other institution but the Christian Church. The people were seeing not the bankruptcy of Christianity, but the bankruptcy of the anti-Christian forces. He urged the people always to remember that the Church stood for the highest things. There was nothing to be ashamed of in being a member of a church of Christ and nothing to be ashamed of in making it known that one belonged to the Presbyterian branch of the great Christian family.