THE WESLEYAN PASTORAL.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1883, 17 October 1913, Page 2

THE WESLEYAN PASTORAL.

■ !i YEAR OF AGGRESSIVE EVANGELISM.'

The Pastoral Address of the Conference to the Methodist people, written this year by Rev. George Allen, 8.A., superintendent of the Leeds Mission, opens with a roferenco to,.the success of tho Young People's Conventions held during tho past year, And urges that special efforts bo made to win tho children for Christ during tho present year, and to train them for tho membership and service! of the Church. Methodists everywhere. are invited to spgnd tho week preceding Children's Sunday, October 19, in united prayer for tho realisation of this aim. This is followed by an urgent call to a great spiritual advance, and a determined effort ■ on the part of the wholo Church for the conversion of outsiders. No detailed plans are suggested, but the people are asked to givo themselves to prayer in private, in tho family, and in the church, that' God. will, by tho working of His Holy Spirit, bring in a great revival through Methodism. Tbo love and sacrifice of the peoplo in response to the Centenary appeal for missionary scrvico are alluded to, and reference is also made to the success of tho Laymen's Missionary Conference. Thankfulness is expressed for the improvement in social conditions at home, due maio small measure to tho mdro definite entrance of the Christian Church into this field of service. No social reconstruction, sa'ys the address, can take placo safely and permanently ' apart from Christianity, and no. apathy of the Christian Church should bo allowed to suggest tho contrary. Attention is called to tho decline of materialism in tho intellectual world, and tho revival of a spiritual conception of life and the universe; and a serious warning is uttered against the growing lajity in tho observance of tho Lord's Day.

As to the future, tho address goes on to say: "Wo approach our now year with tho triumphant certainty that God is with us," and Methodists aro urged to mako fervent, definite, aggressive evangelism the watchword of tho Church year as it was the watchword of tho conference. They aro bidden not to bo afraid of methods simply because tlioy are either new or old, but to adopt the best methods that can bo davised to suit condition.

A Lancashire thief has got down tho length of stealing plants from a local graveyard and turning them into cash.

' A witness at Woolwich claiuicd to havo married two thousand women sinco 1880. lie was not a Mormon—merely a registrar.

According to a Buffalo" food expert, "minco pio is an easily assimilable polyeoclirid carbohydrate of high caloric efficiency."

A West Hartlepool woman has got ofF on a cliargo of using violont language on the plea that tho object of hor vituperation had called her "Mrs. Pankhurst."