Papers on Cburch History.

Waiapu Church Gazette, 1 October 1910, Page 15

Papers on Cburch History.

No. 1.

In these short papers, it will be our endeavour to set forth plainly a fewsimple facts and some interesting information about our Church. It is the fashion nowadays to try and belittle our noble heritage : we exalt the Empire, and sing " Uphold our noble heritage — oh, never let it fall," but we so often foiget that the Church of Jesus Christ comes before all earthly empires and wiil outlast them, and many of us are ignorant of the great debt England owes to her Church. Well, m the first place, it was the Church which gave us our Bible — not the Bible, the Church — , and it cannot be too strongly represented that, m all things, the Church of Jesus Christ (which, to us English people, is that portion of it commonly called " The Church of England ") must be, or ought to be, first and foremost m our hearts and m our prayers. Whenever I hear anyone speaking lightly of the Church and of Christian work generally, I always wish 1 had that magic square of carpet and could transport such an one to a land where Missionary enterprise is as yet m its infancy ; where cannibalism reigns ; where life is held cheaply ; where unnameable tortures and cruelties are practised ; where the most obscene and revolting cults obtain ; where rapine and lust and stealing and murder and all vices are unchecked. The Church has, alas ! by no means a spotless history, but we can truthfully say that her good, and her influence for good far outweigh, whatever her sins ov weaknesses may

be. And after all, you know, though her origin be Divine, she is officered by and composed of frail and erring mortals. Her Head is Jesus Christ — God and Man. He came from Heaven to found this Divine Society, • and having trained His first lieutenants, and having sent them, as promised, the Holy Ghost to lead them into all truth, He entrusted the management into human bands : — Firet, the Apostles (note how rapidly the Church grew under their selfsacrificing leadership) : then, as Apostles passed away, their successors, the Bishops, took their place and the Church flourished and spread as before. Gradually the Divine order of Bishop, Priest, and Deacon was brought out m its entirety, and there was no question of any other order for sixteen centuries. Abuses and misuses there were, we know, but the old Apostolic and Catholic order — the Threefold Cord — the three Orders of sacred Ministers remained the one recognised government of the Ohurch. The very persecutions of the Ohurch under the various Roman Emperors not only did not destroy or weaken her faith, her orders, her rites, her ceremonies, but established the Divine Society more firmly than ever and was one means, moreover, of spreading the Faith, for, wherever the persecuted fled, their faithful and consistent lives were the means of winning more and more souls to the religion of Jesus Christ. " The Blood of the Martyrs is the Seed of the Church." Instead of being stamped out, the Ohurch grew and spread, and finally conquered that proud heathen nation and empire which had tried its utmost to destroy her by edicts, by tortures, by bribes, by all conceivable human agencies and devices. There is a glorious roll of Saints and Martyrs of the Early Ohurch which we do well to keep m remembrance : you will find it m the Calendar at the beginning of the Prayer Book. Who has not heard of Perpetua and her companions— of Poly carp— of Ignatius — of Sixtus and of Laurence? Who has not read or heard of the thousands of Christians thrown to .the wild beasts for the amusement of the heathen populace ;■ used as torches to light the Emperor Nero's gardens ; slain m caves, m the catacombs, m their houses, m the streets ; despised, rejected, tormented, evilly entreated

and yet — firm and staunch to their Faith and to their Lord and Saviour 1 and at last the Church conquered — ■ the same Ohurch of which you and I are members to-day. Exactly when and how the faith came to Britain is a matter of uncertainty. Some think that the Apostle Paul himself visited British shores; others hold that Joseph of Aiimathea with some companions brought the Faith to our Motherland ; it is at least certain that Christian soldiers m the Roman armies who occupied England for so long, were instrumental m spreading the gospel — the "good news" of Jesus Christ — among the Britons, who were then m a state of darkness and given to human sacrifices under the false religion of the Druids. And. Britain too had her martyrs (duly commemorated m the Prayer Book), such as S. Alban, and S. Julius ; and her true and faithful missionaries such as Ninian, Patrick, Chad, Bridget, Columba, and hosts of others. 061---umba fell asleep on Whitsunday, 597, and by this time a great part of Britain had been Christianized and many churches, more or less humble of course, for these were not days of architecture, had been raised to the glory of God. So the Church of Christ — its order, and its faith intact — spread all over the then-known world, everywhere bringing blessings like dew or rain on a thirsty land ; everywhere converts were made, and false religions with their cruel human sacrifices and abominable orgies gave way to the pure aud noble and glorious teachings of the followers of Jesus Christ — the Bishops, Priests, and Deacons — the holy men and holy women — the soldiers, the sailors, the mechanics, the nobles, the matrons, the virgins and the youths who confessed Christ and gloried m being members of His Church.