(2) To Seize An Opportunity Of Evangelisation.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume 29, Issue 8, 1 November 1938, Page 2

(2) To Seize An Opportunity Of Evangelisation.

Now the Church does provide special opportunities for bringing people face to face with spiritual realities. Thus the "occasional offices" administered m connection with births, deaths and marriages are designed to accompany events of importance m every family, and to mark them with a recognition of Almighty God as the Father of all. Particularly m the case of marriages may it be stated that sincere and. thoughtful people are never really content to minimise the spiritual significance of the solemn sacramental rite of Holy Matrimony, which commemorates the greatest change m their lives, or to treat it as a mere social formality. In the past two and a-half years, your Bishop has had contact with some six hundred young people, married m St. Matthew's Church, Auckland, of which he was Vicar. He found that there were many, who, although they had drifted away from the active practice of religions, were prepared to give earnest thought to the challenge of the Christian message, and were appreciative of its definite presentation to them by the priest, whom they had asked to marry them. At such a time, when young men and women are preparing to accept fresh responsibilities and to re-adjust their habits for a new state of life, their minds become aware of the need of a spiritual background for home and family life. Nevertheless, as it is hardly necessary to remark, the efforts of the ordained clergy alone will not suffice for the very formidable task of winning back the people of our land to an active pursuit of the faith of their forefathers. The Church must look also to the. en-

thusiastic co-operation of all her "laity" m the task of evangelisation.