SERVICE AND RELIGION.

Hokitika Guardian, 30 January 1929, Page 8

SERVICE AND RELIGION.

For many, the service <n men lms loco mo a substitute for religion. If is easy enough to argue for it; to make stage capital or literary points out of tile contrast between the worshipper who neglects the appeal for human service and the man who scorns the Church, hut is generous, kind and sympathetic Yet the real truth is that the two tilings cannot he separated without loss to both. Without service, religion degenerates into unreality; and without religion, service becomes materialistic. it cannot help in any way the man it seeks to serve, and in the end it fails of its own vital impulse and motive. Who is the man to whom we give the cup of cold water? Is lie only body, or is lie spirit? Is he merely an animal, spending In's little life like a moth in the sunlight before the shadows fall ? Will it not make a difference to him, whether we feed him as we give a. hone to a dog or in the spirit in which a man gives a gift, to his brother?”—The Rev. Jus Reid, in his book, “In Touch with Christ.”