SERMON BY ARCHDEACON AVERILL.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 13337, 1 February 1909, Page 7

SERMON BY ARCHDEACON AVERILL.

Preaching at St. <Michael*s last night from the text, "Bear ye one another's burdens," the Yon. Archdeacon Averill said the old word "Almsgiving," had to a great extent dropped out of their popular vocabulary, and they talked more about charity, taking up collations, collecting subscriptions, and BHidir-s out list*. AVhon they went boo.c a eomiparatiroly few years they saw thf» Church supporting all the schools in existence, and practically all the charitable institutions; and' they knew that the hospitals in England today -were to a great extent supported l»v the jrenerous benefactions of tho Church people and w by tho offerings of Church people at the present time. They still hnd to m»pp«r6)their schools, th«ir institution. , :. their poor and needy, as well as their criminal outcastb. hut they did. it in a different

way. They did it because they were obliged to—they did it through the rates. Hβ was not finding fault with tho svetem, but he I eared it had i«iodi'oed a different ideal in people's minds with regard to their responsibilities to one another. Giving was iio lenger a free-will offering -with the majority, but a compulsory tax, and hence the Scriptural ide-a of akuEKiving as an, offering to God and. Hie Christ was overlooked by tho majority. Very few peoplo thought of contributing to any cause whatever. They weie ii.clined to depend! lnoro and more upon the State, and to maJio it the universal grandmother, ceasing to ta&o any personal interest iv the very works and institutions which they lwd foisted on to the State. It was not altogether good for their characters to shirt their responsibility upon the State. Many felt that tho Children's Ward, at the Hospital should havo been provided veare ago out of tlto rates; but In these days, when so much of their burden-bearing was done by proxy, it seemed to the preacher tfoa-t it was a ! blessing to ihem that, they had the opportunity of going back to the days gone by and doing something for jfche sick ajid needy by voluntary effort. The very fact tha-t. tho Children's Ward appealed strongly to tho hearts of men and women, was a good sign, and an evidence of something deeper in them than, generally a-ppeas-ed on tiio surface. Tho speaker "went- on to say, in. condemnation of various systems of raising funds for different objects, that the height of absurdity was reached in many so-called self-denial funds, in which the "deoiers" carefully canvassed their neighbours and handed in the results as the fruit of their own self-denial, in regard to his appeal for help towards ft St. Michael's oot a* tho Children's Ward, ho wanted their contributions to be a free-will offering, not taken from somebody else, but an offering over and above what they contributed to carrying on the work of G>od*s Church. The preacher concluded :—" 'Bear ye ono another's burdens' but don't inflict burdens on some by trying to boar them for others. Don't bo generous to the now by roi>bing the old."