RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18372, 4 May 1925, Page 10

RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS.

REV. H. L. SIMPSON'S

MISSION.

A distinguished Scottish preacher, the Rev. Hubert L. Simpson, formerly minister at Westbourne Church, Glasgow, is at present in Christchurch. He has come to New Zealand from India and Burma, via Australia, and he will go Homo via America.

Speaking to a reporter yesterday, Mr Simpson said he had been going round the world looking into questions that interested him. "One or my impressionb is that there are powerful spiritual forces at work in the world today, although they are not in the old channels," he said. He was strongly against the mixing of religion and politics. "A strength of the Church lies in keeping clear of politics." ho continued, "for I believe the Church should be the common rallying ground for holders of every shade" of political opinion." In his church in Glasgowtwo prominent members of the congregation had been Sir Robert Home, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a Labour member of the House. The out standing men in all parties at th« present time had Christian beliefs, and that was part of their strength, for the country felt confidence in their ideals.

Asked for his opinion on the healing missions conducted by some denominations, the Rev. Simpson said that a great many of the leading medical men had been followers of tlieChristian faith. Sir Oliver Lodge had laid his finger on a truth when ne said "Drugs without prayer are as useless as prayer without drugs." Mr Simpson mentioned, thart. his grand-uncle. Sir James Simpson, had been the discoverer of chloroform, while his father, Sir Alexander, Simpson, w r as a professor of midwifery at Edinburgh University. Mr Simpson is a brother of Professor J. V. Simpson, who succeeded Mr Henry Drummond in the Chair of Natural Science at New College, Edinburgh. Professor Simpson was chosen to delimit the frontier between Latvia and Lithuania after the -war, and he has written books _ showing the relation of science and religion. An exceptionally large congregation was present at St. Andrew's Prosbyterian Church yesterday morning, when Mr Simpson conducted the service. So large was the attendance that the ordinary seating accommodation"had to bo supplemented with chairs placed in the aisles. "Therefore let us give thanks that ours is an unshaken kingdom," Hebrews, 12, 28, was the text which Mr Simpson took. He said that he had cause to remember those words on one occasion when in Glasgow, when he read in the papers of one of the more severe of the Pacific earthquakes. On reflecting, he found that he had cause to give thanks that there was little likelihood of the hills of the homeland reeling and staggering. On looking back, he could not recall any decade in the history of the world which had been more full of shakings than that from which they had just emerged. All over the world, the familiar contours had changed as the clouds changed while one gazed upon them. Where once memory and routine would carry one swiftly along, now schedules and tables had to be consulted. In his comparatively short life, kingdoms and and the things that had been set up to take their places, had shaken and fallen. No age had been more prepared by circumstances to appreciate the Epistle to the Hebrews. Itj had been written at a time of collapse. The old religious forms of the time were passing away and nothing definite* had arrived to take their place. If his congregation would read the Epistle through, they would see that the author did not disguise the facts, but faced them. That was one of tho reasons why the Bible was an open book.

During the service the preacher offered a special prayer for the Prime Minister in his serious illness.

Preaching at St. Paul's Church, to a very large congregation last night, Mr Simpson stated that the only remedy for the present day unrest was a universal adoption of Christian ideals. He took for his text Samuel xix., 10: "And Absolom, whom we anointed over us, is dead in battle. Now therefore -why speak ye not a word of bringing the king back?" The people of Israel, he said, had tired of David and his psalms and they had deposed him and put Absolom on the throne. Then Absolom had failed them. "We've all got to the length where Absolom has failed us," he declared. "Everything was to be all right after the war, or when this or that Government was in power, but we are not much further on, are we?". The main- outlook, commercially and financially, was grey, and what could be looked to for help? Help could not come from politics, not even from international movements, r much as the Bpeaker appreciated the work of the League of Nations. Kome people would say: "Sports are wanted; everyone Should have the sporting instinct; they are all fine fellows who play games/" But did they remember what nappened at the last meeting of international sportsmen at the Olympiad at Paris? The affair was hushed up, but out of a sports gathering there nearly came an international war. Certainly Absolom had failed and it was time that the King Jesus Christ should come into His own. There were hopeful signs that the tide, not only in England, but on the Continent, was on the turn. The speaker had recently met Giovanni Paplni, an Italian man of letters, who from being a leader of infidels had been dramatically converted to Christianity. His story of the life of Christ was read by Musso-< lini when he was at the head of his "Black Shirts," and now it had been decreed that the New Testament should be read in all the schools in Italy. The speaker concluded by urging his congregation to show in their everyday life that they were preparing for the j Kingdom of God.