Radio Services.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume XV, Issue 5, 1 November 1924, Page 462

Radio Services.

The ' ' Canadian Churchman " says : We believe that the Radio is one of God's most ' wonderful, gifts to. man, and the pity of it is that men so soon accept the. gift complacently ■ and cease to marvel at its greatness. Like all God's gifts, it has, when rightly used, brought untold belssings to man. We know of a missionary and his people on the Northern coast of Labrador who are entirely! cut off from the rest of the world for the seven ( !) winter months, and who last winter for the first time (except on one occasion m the preceding year when an aeroplane suddenly alighted amongst them) got into communication with their fellow-man by means of a radio set. This missionary m relating his first experience said with what thankfulness he observed that the first thing he heard after tuning-in was a well-known hymn. The spiritual and intellectual value of this invention to these people cannot be questioned. When we read this: "I am helpless and blind, and the 1 only way I can hear any religious service is by radio," we cannot but express our thankfulness that • this blessing has come into the world. All this, no doubt, is to the good. "He that is not against us is on our part." But it is the old story. Excesses and abuses m the use of all God's gifts are the first and last cause of all our troubles and a root of evil. In short, we cannot feel that any real good will come of the effort (m effect, if not intention) to supplant the Sunday worship of God m His Own House. Not that there is any real danger of losing the churchgoing people. Those who have resisted the lure of the motor car to take them into the world on Sundays m summer will resist the lure of the radio to bring the world (or the Church) to them on. Sundays m winter. What we lament is the organised effort on the part of zealous and alert Christians to make the Church^ reach the non-churchgoers by means of the radio. You may arouse their curiosity for a while, but you cannot "get" them that way; you simply put a premium on self-indulgence. We read that the Cathedral of the Diocese of Easton, U.S.A., ha d "listened m" to the services at the Washington Cathedra^ and the ; writer of * l Gargoyles" m the New York "Churchman", suggests that if every church m the diocese installed ; a receiving set every worshipper could enjoy "the inestimable privilege of hearing his bishop, not once a year, but every Sunday!" While this does indeed involve the worshipper going to church, surely the writer is joking. ■ Surely he knows humairi nature well enough to believe that if the wor-

shippers heard their : bishop .every Sunday, m most cases it would very soon cease to be regarded as "an inestimable privilege." -