Devotional Reading

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXIII, Issue 145, 6 December 1929, Page 2

Devotional Reading

IFOR THE SABBATH DAY ISLAM’S FORWARD MOVEMENT. The quarterly review of the r ‘ Church Overseas,” issued by the Missionary w» Council of the Anglican Church, has an I interesting article under the heading j ‘hfgypt, ” dealing with the projected I reform of the famous university of J El Azhar at Cairo, taken from a rcleent' issue of “The African World.” This states that Mahmud Pasha Cabinet plans not only to bring the educa- . tional facilities afforded by this powI erful religious centre up to date, but | also to create a new university city and to restore, if possible, to Azhar gl the immense prestige that attached to || its day of greatest glory. The article | ! states: — | ! “The new university will be divided I into four sections —legal, theological, | i literary and philosophical, and a train- . ing college for preachers. It will be grouped around the present beautiful old building, which will be kept intact for use solely as a mosque, and the iisa x 7 e mosque of Saidna Hussein will also remain, but the ground between those * two buildings and the slopes of the I IMokattam hills, at present covered I i with a network of crowded and unlove--8 i ly houses, will be cleared entirely, and j • the new university buildings erected in | • the midst of cool, delightful gardens, g I In every branch the scope of the edu- ! I cation given will be widened and mod- ♦ cruised. As an example, for the first | time in the history of Islam, young | Moslem theologians will be sent abroad 9 to the universities of Europe to study § other religions in order to qualify X them to lecture on comparative lheog j logy. History, mathematics, physics, I j modern languages, and other such sub- | j jects will be included in the curriB culum. Only those who have some first- | hand knowledge of the fanatically con’s’ i servative spirit that has hitherto dom- ' inated El Azhar, where the regime | has scarcely varied through the co-n--i turics that have elapsed since its | i foundation, can appreciate how r revolu- | I tionary are the coming changes and | how far-reaching is likely to be their | ! effect.” | This is only one. more evidence of g | the awakening of the Moslem Church. | • which has of late years in other coung tries adopted a forward movement fol- ! lowing to a certain extent upon the I j lines of missions of the Christian I j Churches. Reports have previously been | i received from various missionary or- | ■ ganisations of the renewed activity of j j the Moslem Church and the need for 2 I a similar energy on the part of the g Christian Churches to keep pace with 5 , the movement. | | CURRENT NOTES. ! Dr A. Douglas .Brown, president of | the Baptist Union, preaching at Yorks, I ! said he could not see any' revival a ! along the line of a mass movement, unI til something tremendous happened in ♦*« their churches. The most serious prons blcms they had to face were those in- ! side the church. | ' I Warwick Church, Bermuda, is stated I to be the oldest Presbyterian charge in g i any British colony, as it dates back to | ! 1719. There is a brass tablet in the ? i building to commemorate services held ! i by George Whitefield in 1748, and the | ' box pulpit from which he preached is g : still there in good preservation. | “Until there is a strong corporate | i re-union among Protestants them- | ; selves,” said Father Dudley, speaking | i at the Roman Catholic Congress, “there I i is little hope of winning them over as g i a whole to the Catholic faith, but there s ; is hope of gaining individual converts. • ; We are at present receiving converts V■' from almost all denominations and sects.” j Dr Richard Roberts, in the Canadian | “Journal of Religious Thought,” had g the following paragraph: —“When we * realised how much crime is due to s, mental and physical deficiency, and 33 how much this condition, in its turn. is due to social, maladjustments that our fathers before us and we ourselves have tolerated, we cannot repudiate a certain share in the guilt' of the criminal. ” ‘ .

Dr. J 4 C. Carlile, preaching at the 201st anniversary of Folkestone Baptist Church, remarked that the churches in Kent owed much to the zeal of Captain Tavener, who was appointfed Governor of Deal Castle by Oliver Cromwell. In 1663 the captain was baptised at Sandwich, and united with the Baptist Church at Dover. He became an elder and preached ail along the coast. Some of the earlier Baptists were buried at the cross roads, being denied the churchyard on' the ground of their heresy.