WHAT CONGREGATIONS EXPECT.

Hokitika Guardian, 23 February 1928, Page 1

WHAT CONGREGATIONS EXPECT.

•• Intelligibility is what a congrcgation,” in the view of " W.ChB.” in the “ Birmingham Post,” lias a right to expect from a preacher, anrl to lie intelligible a man mpst speak in the language of his own time. \et who has not been irritated ns well as perplexed by hearing a sermon uttered in the language of fifty years ago? Sermons that ignore the changes that time has wrought ill speech and i ideas are among the worst misfits of all. Heresies that died out ages ago arc treated as if they were still tc the front and had not yet been rc futed ; terms that long since ceased to he charged with life and meaning arc used as if they were battle-cries of today. Heresy, no dopbt. reappears in fresh shapes as each generation comes and goes, but only those can overcome it who know how to speak in the language of their own time and can give out the truth that never changes in terms not of the past but of the present. The sermons of a bygone age did the work which that age required ; they cannot do tlje work of an age that thinks and speaks in ways of its own.”