CHURCH, SERVICES.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 729, 31 January 1910, Page 6

CHURCH, SERVICES.

The morning service at St. Mark's Church yesterday was conducted' by the Primate of New Zealand (Bishop Nevill), whoso subject, was "The Principles of Christian Charity." ■'■'■ ■ In . the evening,' the - Bev. H. A. Kennedy,-' Vicar of Horbury, in the. West Biding of'Tprkshire,-. who is.'visiting : the Dominion, as' the ■ forerunner, of., the ■ General',. Mission, - occupied... the:. pulpit. The .preacher,, taking, for,, his 'text, the words in, .the Book, of /Bevelatioh, "I.saw- , the''Holy New" Jerusalem'de-' scending out of Heaven from God," depowerful' address. He touched upon the cardinal aspects of religious missions, which he exemplified by a description of the "City of God,-" and the obligations of its citizens. ■At the Wesley Church, ■-Lower Hutt, yesterday, the. Sunday School anniver-' sary was .held: 'Special music'was rendered by the scholarss.' The preacher, in ..the, morning, was Mr.. H. N.- 'Holmes, of, the Y.M.C.A.,/ there" being a large con-' gregation. The scholars were, addressed in .the afternoon .'by the Eev. W. Bowden Harris; and' in the evening .the .pastor' pley..B. P. Bothwell) /occupied thepulpit' , ' ' - The pulpit at St: Paul's, pro-Cathedral was occupied yesterday morning' by. Bishop Averill, •of Waiapu, who preached before a.large congregation from the text:, "I,am among you as He that serveth."' The '. bishop, in. an' incisive and. vigorous style, defined the position of the Church;' it. was ■ the; soul' and consciohco of the nation, a training ground in which men were schooled into right conduct and fitted in-.the highest, and best .sense ;for ' the important duties,, of -life. / It' was . the function of: the' Church to insist "on higher'. civic and national ideals and to; play a leading part in the moulding of rmblio.opinion ;which,after all was the motive power behind governments.. The ; Church, it was declared;' was' the mainspring : of. national life and attempts to capture it as auxiliary to limited political and social ends were-degrading and humiliating. ; The Church could not be divorced from patriotism; the two represented, an indissoluble unity .'and it' was therefore necessary that the Church should be firm/ and insistent in; the denunciation of evil however safeguarded that evil might be by a perverted or undeveloped public opinion. More thinkers and less talkers..were required, said the bishop.; Character was the essence of patriotism . and the splendour of the Greek patriotic ideal was, instanced as the outcome of the deep religious spirit of .the Greeks, a spirit in which the ego.was disciplined and absorbed by the State and heroic achievements resulted. In Greece the man who took no interest in the State was regarded as a civic defaulter and was known, by a name that corresponds to tho English "idiot." The sermon.closed with a pointed and trenchant allusion to Socialism as an antiChristian force. "Silly, drunken hoodlums singing 'God Save the Kingi- or"Britons Never. Shall be Slaves'.;are as helpful to the cause of true, patriotism as ; thoso individuals who strive to create a new and porfect order of things oh a foundation of intense selfishness and rf&^wUeooattterlolflV'-