THE LAYMAN.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume 25, Issue 2, 1 February 1935, Page 5

THE LAYMAN.

(From "Public Opinion," London) "Leave it to the ministers and soon the Church will die, Leave it to the women-folk — the young will pass it by. For the Church is 1 all that lifts us from the coarse and selfish mob, And the Church that is to prosper needs the layman on the job. Now a layman has his business, and a layman has his joys, But he alone has the training of his little girls and boys; And I wonder how he'd like it if there were no churches here, And he had to raise his children m a

Godless atmosphere? It's the Church's special function to uphold the finer things, To teach that way of living from which all that's noble springs; But the minister can't do it, singlehanded and alone. For the laymen of the country are the Church's' cornerstone. When you see a church that's empty, though its doors are open wide, It" is not. the church that's dying— it's the layman who have died; For it's not by song or sermon that the Church's work is done, It's the laymen of the country who for God must carry on. —EDGAR A. GUEST.