EVANGELISTIC CAMPAIGN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 18823, 13 July 1923, Page 2

EVANGELISTIC CAMPAIGN

Ihe meetings in connection with the great campaign now being conducted under the auspices of the united churches are growing in interest and i’.tensity. St. Paul’s Hall was full to overflowing last night, when the Rev. F. E. Harry made another of his earnest and eloquent appeals to men and women that they should get back to the blessedness they knew when first they gave themselves to God’s service. 1 he-preacher instanced the condition of the patriarch Job, almost in despair, but never turning against God. It seemed that another weight, however little might he the “last straw.” which would, as the proverb says, break the camel’s back. Many instances were adduced of things in themselves apparently trifling wnich had important results—a crack in a wheel leading to a railway accident, a small cinder from an engine destroying eyesight, a gjain of dust stopping the works of a watch, etc. The microbe is one of the smallest things in nature, but it is a deadly thing for all that.. When God’s ancient people went to the bad with idolatry, they didn’t go ail the way just at once. I'hey made concessions to their heathen neighbours, they traded with them, they intermarried with them, and before they knew what they were doing they were passing thei r little children through the fire to Moloch. Seventh Day Adventism, Theosophy, Mormonism, Kddyism (Christian science, falsely socalled), were all brought to review by the preacher, and then falsehood jfnd absurdity exposed. Let them, he said, be brougnt to the bar of God’s word, and their errors will be manifest in the light of the truth. The address was directed most of all to those who had known the joy of conversion and had gone back into worldliness or sin. The dance, the “sex-prob-k-'.n” novel, the fiiend who is a stranger to God, the euchre pa’-ty, the totalisator, and the lottery—all sorts of insidious ways in which the world vans Git us. “Watch and pray,” said Christ, “lest ye enter into temptation,” but if arayer and vigilance are neglected, and we live in contact with sin, a drift from Christ is a certaintv.

Was there a time in their religious hfe when they said : How much can I do for the Master? And were they now saying: How netle? If so, he would plead with his hearers that night to come back to the old way, lest there should be, what too often comes to. men —a loss of the spiritual faculty. God takes ali His trouble with His people because He loves them, but it is possible to so weary God’s Holy Spirit that He will be forced to leave us alone, as in the case of Ephram, who was joined to idols. Many’ were longiug to-dhy for * sight of the face last seen on Olivet. Acs, but were we ready for that great event ? He would remind them that the mercy seat was still available, that God hears praver, r.nd that He has promised to take away the stony heart out of our flesh and give us a heart of flesh. TO-NIGHT be 110 mectin g in St. Paul’s Hall, but the ordinary Friday night meeting will be held in Maria Place at < 30, when it is hoped a very large crowd will put in an appearance. Prayer meeting at 7 a m. to-morrow, and the ordinary meeting in St. Paul’s Hall on Saturday evening at 7.30. Sunday services will be announced in Saturday s issue.