CHRISTCHURCH.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 33, 10 December 1886, Page 17

CHRISTCHURCH.

(From our own Correspondent.) December 6, 1886. The Jubilee mission has proved a very exacting work to the Rev. Father who is conducting it. The people attend in fair numbers, not many making a point of bearing any discourse, or being present at every exercise. Hut whenever one goes to the church one is sure of a fine discourse on some one of the eternal truths, or on the dogmas of the Church, or the several points of note in the daily life of the Christian, or the duties of man to his God and his neighbour, — and one hears it in the several styles of which Father le Menant is master. In the morning it is a short practical discourse, never more than half an hour, simple in language, wise in thought, kindly in tone : than these I know nothing more moving and touching. In the evening the theme is worked out to greater length, great wealth of erudition and fertility of illustration distinguish it, and sometimes the voice risei and becomes insistent till one thinks of the great Jeremiah, or of that prophet of old who went into Nineveh calling upon the people to desist from evil, and do penance for' their sins. Of this order was the sermon oa eternal punishment we heard one day last week. On the Sunday there is ii variety, inasmuch as the discourse becomes more formal and more remarkable for artistic preparation. In the morning we had an exhaustive exhortation on the duties of parents, introduced by a thorough and minute

comparison of the family under the Christian iud jM-^an dispensations ; very interesting for its historical kuo-vle ig d . In the evJuins the subject, the day being procession Sunday, was the Real Presence in the Blessed Eucharist— on which thetne the tn-ittnent was in its simplicity.lucidity, and logical force. As masteily as it is possible for any treatment to be, as Father Ginaty said, in reminding the congregation not to forget to subscribe for the expenses of the mission this sermon was worth a good subscription without any other at all in order to organise the said sub-scrip, ion on a satisfactory footing our Missionary Rector has applied the envelope system— each subscnption to be enclosed in an envelope, with tne name an<l address of the donor.

The attempt to found ragged schools in Auckland reminds me that the idea waa mooted here some years a^o by a clergyman a member of the Education Board, since deul. But mmy of the community thought that in a free system this *as rather a strong proposal, and th_ matter had to b^ dropped. What the chances would be now, I could iot say. Humau nature, I suppose, is human nature. The Socialist in Paris, for instance, who wants the State not only to educate his children at the public expense but to feed them as well, is bub a man ; and the secularist who after taking the money of the poorest of the people to help pay for the education of hiß children, and for the scholarships and good things which they monopolise, wants to set their children apart as inferior, and brand them as " ragged," and to throw them the bones of the education system in the shape of the cast-off books and the inferior teachers ; and that secularist is a man too. There is not less in common between these two than there was iv the famous parallel between Monmouth and Maldon, for.both begin with the same letter on the contrary there is a great deal more.