An Advancing Church.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume 36, Issue 6, 1 September 1945, Page 4

An Advancing Church.

We are an Advancing Church.^ If it is not, I should feel that we have fallen right out of step with that • great leader of our Church, by whose passing our hearts were so deeply moved. William Temple, as I knew him, was a spiritual giant with the heart of a child, a dynamic man who could convert an ancient Archbishopric into a vital centre of ardent achieving, a robust champion of., human rights, a Church leader in'- , capable of mere ecclesiasticism, a philosopher combining intellectual mastery with a grand and simple humility. He is gone, but his dauntless regenerating spirit still marches on. It reminds us every day that Christianity is a Way along which man must travel if he is to be in -harmony with himself, his neighbours and God. It tells us that, m spite of all that William Temple's critics said, God's method is not a blueprint, but an Incarnation, and that through His Body, the Church, men are to see God's way lived out. It speaks of a God Who acts; and of men who are called to share the activity of God. It urges us to speak plainly to the world not of a withdrawn piety, not of a sectional ecclesiastical interest, but m downright speech of a Gospel which inspires and empowers: men to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with their God. —The Bishop of Wellington m his ' address to the Wellington Synod.