CHRISTIANITY’S CHARACTERISTIC

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 146, 23 June 1931, Page 11

CHRISTIANITY’S CHARACTERISTIC

A RELIGION OF CHEERFULNESS. Preaching in the Westmere district on Sunday last, the resident Presbyterian minister, Rev. A. H. Norrie, referred to the many times Jesus had said “Be ot good cheer”’ Unlike John the Baptist, Christ was not an ascetic but joined in the feasts which were a feature of sociable fellowship in those days. Artists without historical foundation had worked upon their imagination and depicted Christ as an emaciated and gloomy individual, but the Master was one who evidently enjoyed good health for He healed the sick ones that besought His help tied He instilled into the hearts of His disciples that radiant joy that enabled them to rejoice all times even when in prison and suffering the effects of brutal torture. The secret of Christ’s perennial joy was that He preached giving and not getting as the true aim of life and thus the spirit of unselfish service is one that brings the truest happiness and makes one independent of the fluctuations of fortune. Christianity, as one had said, was the “most joyful religion in the world for its history began with joy over the birth of Jesus and then ended with a Hallejah Chorus.” Unlike the religion of Mohammed and of Budda the Christian worship was filled with hymns of praise. It proclaimed a cheerfulness that to use the words of the Savious, “The world cannot give, neither take away.”