The Education of Our Churchpeople.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume VIII, Issue 11, 1 May 1918, Page 82

The Education of Our Churchpeople.

In his Lenten pastoral for this year the Archbishop of Brisbane said to his people : — ' ' I have no doubt as to our main duty. We must instruct ourselves m the Faith. It is the gross ignorance of our people, born of indifference, which constitutes our greatest danger and makes us a prey to every kind of error. What we want m every parish, m every township and countryside, is Churchpeople who really know what they believe, and what their Church has to give to men m the emergencies, the sorrows, and perplexities of this mortal life." The Archbishop proceeds to definitely recommend, as a valuable use to make of Lent, the study by Churchpeople of two recent books that have attracted a good deal of attention — Bishop Gore's "The Religion of the Church," and the Rev. Walter Carey's "A Book of Instruction for Churchpeople," There can scarcely be a question that a chief hindrance to the growth of real religion is the want of accurate knowledge among the great body of people of even the foundations upon which our relation to God rests. By the vast majority their religious life is mainly a matter of tradition — something they have inherited from their forefathers, and about which they do not think it necessary to inform themselves that they may know "the certainty concerning the things" (St. Luke i-4) which have to do with the eternal verities. The result is, as Archbishop Donaldson points out, that people have no spiritual moorings: and, therefore, drift about aimlessly and indifferently over the ocean of life. Thus Christianity loses almost all its possible influence as a dominating personal guide to conduct, and as a corporate power m the moulding of national life. The two books referred to are obtainable at most booksellers and may 'be had from Chadwick's, Napier.