THE PARSON AND HIS JOB

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 148, 10 July 1937, Page 12

THE PARSON AND HIS JOB

"Men on the whole, are not easily persuaded of the joy of worship or of its sequel in victorious Eving," writes the Archdeacon of Northumberland, in the International Eeview of Missions. "They find it hard to worship because the economie environment of their lives does not point them to God. Sometimfes they find it harder inside churches than outside when clorgy and minxsters are slovenly, careless craftsmen, and are not worshipful themaelves. "The conduct of worship, therefore, is eur supremc craft. We cannot be at too much paints to make our churches truly and simply worshipful and ourselves genuine conductors and not just opaque, painted glass that shuts out God's light and caricatures His truth. The height of our calling does not exeuse a low standard of efficiency. "There is a good professionalism of whieh there cannot be too much; an artist's pride of craft, so that we put blood of body and brain into all we do — worship an j preaehing, teaching, care of souls, even administration and the ordering of our own lives so as not to waste good time and energy; a scientist's humble respect for truth, so that, we know what we are talking about and do not talk unless we do. For this we have to remain students with open growing minds right up to the end."