RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1443, 18 May 1912, Page 9

RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY.

CANADA'S NEEDS. CHURCH AND IMMIGRANTS. in addressing an English Anglican audience on the needs of Canada recently, Parkin spoke of arguments Oiten. brought forward that Canada was so prosperous that the Church there had 110 need to appeal to England. He said iiiese arguments were utterly wrong; *100,000 people went into Canada each year; if you built a church to hold 500 people you woidd need GOO new churches for theso people every year. Who was to muld tiicm? The vast mass of settlers were hewers of wood and drawers of water, and almost every man looked forward to a keen struggle before he made a livelihood; 1)00,000 people spread over 1000 miles of country? Uf those 100,000 wont from England; tliev missed in the new places there everything a Christian valued, and tound no one to baptize their children or lo bury their dead. Hero, in A\ esminster Abbey and St. Paul's, and in thousands of churches, we enjoyed the services. Who built those churches? Who endowed thorn? Many contributed no proportion to the funds, and got their religious privileges for nothing; vet they belonged, too, to those people wlio went away. Every man from a country village had as much right to a seat in his village church as those who remained at home; so there came the burden of duly. They were sending out thousands who wero free to enjoy religious privileges, and whether in the interest of friends or for the wider purpose of Christian influence, they owed to these men that duty. Were they going to do it? Transcontinental lines were being filing across the Dominion, anil people were settling all along them, Railway companies gave in a reasonable way for those brought into relation with them, but,.surely our inspiration should be different, and should bo liko tho inspiration of Christ, to care for everyone. Then, a vast proportion of the wealth of the country was drawn from colonies, and the stream should pour back. Much of his life was employed in advocating national questions, such as that of unifying tho Empire. Some thought this could best be done by cables, others by steamboat connexions, others by commercial • intercourse. From' his observation in every part of tho empire he believed that none of these means could equal a sense of Christian responsibility. .Numbers of young men were going in j whether they were to bo hold to truth and unrightness depended on the moral influences surrounding them, for a new country was the last place where men going wrong would naturally go right.