CHRISTIAN ORDER

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXXI, Issue 8837, 28 October 1942, Page 3

CHRISTIAN ORDER

Speaking at the Baptist Church on Sunday evening the Rev. H. W. Page said that a hundred voices in the Auckland Province were that night speaking about the sanctity of the home and the strength of the nation which lay in the homes of her .people. A nation was but an aggregation of homes—a great nation was one with great- homes, and great homes were those which possessed great fathers and mothers. The finest picture we had of God was that of Father. He had one Son but the largest family, for through faith in that Son we had been adopted as sons. The family was God’s school, every father in Israel was both priest and teacher. The family, as the social unit,- must be safeguarded, not - with State guardianship of the child but State concern. - The provision of healthy environment, the elimination of unnecessary temptation, and the removal of vice were lines along which the State should manifest concern. The ideal of the Christian family is the direct creation of Christianity, the inculcation of faith in God and the development of character upon the new faith. The wor-d “familia” to the Roman meant a despot who could at his will prove unfaithful to the matron. But the new, Christian faith, while it sanctioned authority of the parent, checked despotism, enriched the p osition of womanhood with all that was pure and tehder in thejiames of mother and wife. For all that there was of divinity and sweetness in the one word “home” we were indebted to Christianity alone. This was the victory of Christianity . The influence of the home was seen in the growth of character of Jack and Jill. No' man could do anything for God in public places if his own home was devastated and broken up in the principle of rebellion against God. God was knowable because of His personality and it was a' father’s duty to make the reality of God as a person as well as a Trinity. The Lord our God was one, yet He was greater than one and it was in the incarnation of Jesus Christ that the most essential value of our faith was seen. The Master of Life grew up as a member of a family, setting forth that subjection to parents as stood out as evidence of a perfect obedience. The best and most natural way for a child to enter into his spiritual heritage was to grow into it gradually as did Jesus Christ, who grew in wisdom and knowledge and stature and in favour with God and man. Religion should be part of the education of a child, side by side with a vocational and social nature. So Jack and Jill were made for love and mutual society help and comfort -—that was the wording of the marriage ceremony and sacrament. Yet not for themselves only but for the creation of a unit of society, a good home. With that forgotton, marriage was a failure and divorce quickly followed. The -building up of home life was not to be regarded as a nuisance but as a national responsibility. Religion was more quickly caught than taught for it was as necesary to the home as the air we breathed. “The I’lumbline” The special meetings for this week in the Presbyterian Church addressed by the Rev. Clifford Reay commenced with an address on “The ■Plumb-line.” The speaker stressed the need of testing our Christian lives by the plumb-line •of God’s Word. So many were out of alignment with that word that they were among the crooked things that needed to be made straight. To many people the Christian religion was merely a theory; outwardly they were very nice, but inwardly they needed the new birth. The call of God to every Christian was to line himself by the plumbline of truth. After the new birth there followed character-building. God tested this by the words “Men ought always to pray.” So prayer and Bible reading were the tests as also the supply lines of communication. God further tested us with His words: “If any man will follow Me, let him deny himself.” Let us test ourselves by sacrifice, let us make our witness something with life in it. A further test of the plumb-line was the method by which Jesus Christ worked, viz., one by one. “How do you stand in line with this test?” asked the speaker. 'Pertinent addresses by the same speaker will be given each evening this week.