WORK OF THE MISSIONS

Evening Star, Issue 22147, 30 September 1935, Page 2

WORK OF THE MISSIONS

ADDRESS BY REV. H. LEONARD HURST Missions to-day wore still a much maligned and greatly misunderstood activity of tho church was the view expressed by the Rev. H. Leonard Hurst, secretary for Australia and New Zealand of the London Missionary Society, during tho course of a series of public lectures in the Jubilee Hall, View street, on Saturday evening. Mr J. Abernethy, chairman of the Otago auxiliary of the society, who conducted the meeting, extended a warm welcome to Mr Hurst and spoke briefly on tho world-wide aspect of missions. The world they lived in was iii some respects a very frightening one, but it was also a very interesting and astonishing one. There never was a time when the application of knowledge and the mastery of tho forces of Nature were so great, and when' so much power was being used in tho good service of man. Ono of the issues that was being worked out in the world was how was mankind to use that new un-dreamed-of power which scientists and others were giving to it. Was it to be used for healing or for destruction, for making a few greedy people happy, or for lifting the whole level of the life of tho people? In the long run the final use of that pOwer was being determined, not in the councils of the groat, but in the minds and hearts of India’s and China’s millions, and, indeed, in tho hearts of all the peoples of the world. Christian missions were a serious attempt to win men to the love and service of God and to see that this new and powerful humanity was captured for the service of the world in the name of the Spirit of Christ. Another astonishing feature of their life to-day, the speaker continued, was

the intercommunication-that'had been made possible by the opening up of the entire world, and this threw people upon one another, bringing them almost next door to each other. Unfortunately, people could lie bad neighbours as well as good ones, and one of the great troubles was that persons of every race and creed were brought together before they were ready for it. Thir major problem of to-day was one of relationship. To-day they were in the relationship of neighbours before they had become neighbourly with, the other people of the world and before those other people had become neighbourly with them. They must find their way to become neighbourly in spirit and outlook or else see a welter of misunderstanding and bitterness, of hostility and greed, which would make the world a very second rate place in which to live. The Christian believed that in Christ there was a way of life that was so neighbourly as to include . in thoughtfulness, service, and respect all the peoples of the earth. Mr Hurst then spoke of missionary sendee as an attempt to meet the allround needs of men. Of course, he" said, they made mistakes, but, in spite of errors, he considered that no other body of, men and women was doing a better piece of altruistic service in a region of most varied activity. Not only did the missionary preach tho Gospel, but lie also became a school teacher, a philanthropist; a doctor, and a social worker. Tlie missionary of today, Mr Hurst concluded, was first and foremost a saviour of the world and of men in their need, and he rendered Ids greatest service by showing men tho need of the vision of God, which niiint for them hope, joy, life, and peace.