PUBLIC SPIRITEDNESS

Taranaki Daily News, 3 August 1931, Page 5

PUBLIC SPIRITEDNESS

ADDRESS BY REV. W. HEWITSON. Both services at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, New Plymouth, were conducted yesterday by the Rev. Professor W. Hewitson, 8.A., ex-Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, and-at present master of K nox College, Dunedin, who visited New Plymouth' to' lay the foundation stone of the new Presbyterian church. The church was filled on. both occasions.

“Public spirit” was the subject of Professor Hewitson’s address last night. It was introduced by the Scripture reading of. the Roman citizen in Palestine who built, a synagogue and school for his town. There were . many associations to which people belonged, and each association was to be compared with a body of which the parts were many and different, but were at the same time inter-dependent. These principles were universal and inescapable.

The world and the whole race were a family of nations. The Scriptures knew that a long time ago and they taught the world that it should live together with common good feeling. People did not always recognise that members of bodies owed obligations of service to those bodies. We did not always recgnise our relationship with other nations, and there would be dire results if we. did not. China, for instance, was being lifted to the level of other nations and . would shake the world when she had risen. Unemployment was bringing home to America the fact that she could not live to herself behind her tariff barriers. The world was also realising . that the downfall of Germany would mean the toppling of other nations.. Europe was taking centuries to learn that, and had not learnt it properly yet. , “A public spirited man,” said the speaker, “is one who recognises his obligations to the bodies he belongs to and to other bodies. Sacrifice is the test. A man is truly public spirited if he is willing to sacrifice his time, strength and substance.” People had to remember they were members of their congregation, which was part of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, which was in turn part of the whole of Christ’s Church throughout the world. Professor Hewitson expressed impatience at the provincialism existent in New Zealand. It was difficult, he said, to rise to a wide horizon. .

Speaking of the form of public service, Professor Hewitson said that the manner in which one served the community depended upon the one’s powers. One often expected men to do more than was in their power. When one thought, for instance, of the service one was going to render the first thing to consider was what one could do, The great&s’t calamity was to see a man on the wrong path. The other thing to consider in the form of service was the needs of the body to which one belonged. One’s gifts must be fitted on to the needs of the country. The Roman citizen, then, he consider-

ed, had. given the greatest, possible gift he could by giving a church and a school. It was/the idea of John Knox, also. The , two were things that must go together;—education and religion. They were directed; towards the minds of men and to God. It had been said that’religion was the . greatest State-building principle.. . The church was the soul of the State, and whete ; there was. a . State in which-this was not .so, tjhen that State had not long to live, y “Yourare. building a new church,” Professor Hewitson concluded. . “Those ■ who are working for that,church are working for tlrat iqstituiion, are rendering, a. great - service,.a public spirited service, to the town, to your denomination, to the whole church of God, and to the Dominion.’’. ; ■ Professor Hewitson’s subject at the. morning service was the Qliureh. of Christ and; the use He made of it for instruction, prayer and sacrifice. He called it His . Father ’s House. .Professor Hewitson also spok® on the church..and architectural, design, referring to the temple, at Jerusalem and the church of St. Peter in Rome.;, The temple was of. about the same size. It was 200 .yards long, 60. yards . wide and 150 yards high. The,, temple -at Jerusalem was exceedingly; beautiful. It was said ofthe MahommedanS: that they “designed, like Titans ■ and finished like jeweller®.” That was true of the temple.