Church Congress

Horowhenua Chronicle, 28 December 1911, Page 4

Church Congress

THE BISHOP OF LONDON ON THE CHURCH AND • DEMOCRACY. .SOCIAL PROBLEMS. The business of the Church Congress began this - morning (October 3) with the official reception by the municipal authorities and the presentation of an address of welcome and of sympathy with'-,the work of the Church by the Evangelical Free Churches of North Stafford.' -, In the forenoon opening services were held at Stoke, Hanley, and Newcastle, and later in the day the Bishop of Lichfield delivered his Presidential Address to a largo audience. Sectional meetings for the reading and discussion of papers occupied. the afternon and evening at Stoke, Fen ton, and Hanley. WYCLIFFE PREACHERS' PBOTEST. The customary Congress procession took place at Stoke and aroused much public .interest. .Tt also provoked the usual "protest" from the Wycliffe preachers and the followers of Mr lvensit. Many of the clergy were wearing birettas, and it was apparently this action on their part which provoked the resentment of the "preachers;" for as the clergy passed they cried out, | "Only members of tho Romish. I Church wear birettas," Wihert" are j you going to join tho Pope?" and I "G'o to Rome." This was the burden of the protest, though it found j expression in a variety of similar i ejaculations. Tho hostile demonstration ceased, however, when the. . clergy passed beyond their hearing, | and the. procession entered , the 1 church without further incident. | THE BISHOP OF LONDON'S SERMON.

| The Bishop of London, preaching at Stoke, selected as his text St. ; Matthew ix. 17:—"Neither do men put new wine into Old bottles," Ho said.:—Wo meet to-day in one of the busiest industrial centres of the indutrial life of England, and l I think one question especially, in such a district, and in sucilv a time, is forced upon ns to ask and l to answor, and that is. "Why has the Church not more influence than it has upon the rising tide of democracy to-day?" it is 110 question of Church of Chapel. No other one religions organisation has more inflnonce than the Church, of England, lint why ;has organised labour so little to say to organised Christianity as a whole? Thousands are tired of hearing of a. heaven in another" world. They "believe they were promised a heaven on earth. Tt is a modest enough Kingdom of God which they expect. LABOUR M.P.'S AND RELTGTON. In this country the labour movement is avowedly and definitely religious. If anyone doubts this, lie should send to Browning Hall, Walworth, for a. pamphlet entitled "Christ and Labour," containing the addresses in Labour Week of the present year by 11 Labour members of Parliament. Speaking, then, as 1 do to-day, to a body of earnest Christian men andi women, the first thing that I can ask them to do is to thank God that such men as these ore leading the Labour movement in the English speaking countries. But when we have done, this, we must go further. We must ask why are scarcely any of these men belonging to the Church of England Why, in the recent strike, had the Church so little influence Why arc they not looking more than they are to the historic Church of •Jesus Christ for sympathy, guidance and advice CHUKCHPEOPLE AND CLASS PREJUDICE. I believe the first reason is that, consciously or unconsciously, we are influenced still by a class prejudice. Unless we realise that the young workman is as proud and sensitive as our own young brother who has come home from the university or from Sandhurst] unless we Realise that lie does not want charity," pity, or being preached at any more than the other; that he wants to stand on. his own feet and look the world & the face, and have a man's life with some leisure.in it and some time to read and think, and an honourable opportunity to court his girl and a home to take her to, and that nothing els© that we can give him will do instead, nothing else is treating him as a man—not till we •realise that and show him we realise it have we given him sympathy. And s'o with girls , and women. THE MASSES AND CHURCH ■ CONTROVERSIES. And I think wo come to a third reason. I should be the last to deny the importance of soane Church controversies, but it is hard t-p realise how triv-ihl, how petty many of them must have vseetned to the toiling millions of our fellow-countrymen—how, at any rate, far above their heads the iliurly-burly sounded. There they were fighting and struggling for daily bread; here we were convulsed with ' the question whether a stole was legal.

In the afternoon a large audience gathered in the Town Hall to hear the Presidential Address delivered by the Bishop of Liohfield. The Bishop of Lichfield dealt with the question of the division of the of Lichfield, the Coronation and its meaning, the Church! and faith, social reform, industrial unrest, and the representation of the laity.