ST-MARK'S CHURCH.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1314, 18 December 1911, Page 4

ST-MARK'S CHURCH.

SERMON BY THE NEW VICAH. The K-cr. C. I'. Askew, who arrived from Kuglaml hist week to take up Iho position of vicar of St. Mark's, Wellington, preached an impressive termou iu that church, yesterday luuruing. Taking as his text Iho words in j'salm CO, 11, "We unit Ihroiifjli lir.-< nml water, and Thou broughlest us out into n wealthy place," lha preacher said that tiro and water wero mutually destructive. Yet it was through the Arabian desert, with it? scorching sun and iiery serpents, as veil its through the fied t*ea and River Jordan that the Israelites passed lo the Land of J'romise. So in lilo wo found things which seemed quito contradictory, but which were needed to inspire our characters. Wo all experienced joy and happiness as Well as torroiv and grief, and we might ask how God could bo in both. Then in tho regions of thought we were faced with the apparent contradiction between the sovereignty of God and the free will of man How oould we bcliovo in both!" It took both God's sovereignty and man's i'reo will lo bring'us inlo Hie wealthy places. There was also Iho seeming contradiction and great gulf between life and death. One ronld stand outside one of thoso busy mills or fnetorios which had bcon familiar to the preacher nt Bradford air.l iilackburn, ami .sea tlio employees streaniinL' out tit their dinner hour, a, scene of seemingly inexhaustible life, mid then one might steal away but a little distance to mhhc quiet churchyard by the sravo of sonic loved one, breathe a nrnyor, and wipe away a tear. Lifo and itatth were close together. How were they to be reconciled! , St. Paul had said, "Excent a. corn of wheat full into the ground and die it übiueth alone, but it it die it bringeth forth much fruit." Coining to the thoughts that had led him to choose this text for his first sermon at St. Mark's, the preacher said that if one could liken th? heat of the l'vd Sea and Indian Ocean to fire, lie too had missed through lire and water, and had been saloly brought to a wealthy place, a region rich in natural bnanty. a parish rich in loyal and devoted workers, a promised land of usefulness mid service. Uo asked for the prayers of the congregation that his work amongst them might be blessed.

Baroness dp Laroclw, besides being Uvo first lieenMxl woinnn aviator in Ftdiico, is Ilio first woman bo makn a Iliifht in tlio nro.-onco of royalty. At a recent nvintion nu*t at St. Petersburg which was at-, tended by the Tsar, the liaroncss made a successful (light, risiiiß to a height of about five hundred feet. •