HAPPINESS

Hokitika Guardian, 2 October 1930, Page 7

HAPPINESS

THE CHRISTIAN’S DUTY,

ARCHBISHOP’S AVER ILL’S ADDRESS. LONDON, August 21. On Sunday evening (August 10th), the Archbishop of New Zealand preached at the Newbury Parish Church, in Berkshire. Dr. Avorill wore scarlet Convocation robes. He preached from the texts: “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say Rejoice” and “The fruit of the Spirit is Joy.” The Archbishop maintained it was the duty of Christains to be happy and so to commend Christianity to others by their lives. There were many wrong conceptions of the character of Christ, he isaicl, partly due to the way in which He had been portrayed in Christian art.

Even in the garden of Gethsemane it was not so much the thought of His own sufferings that caused our Lord such terrible grief as the thought that there was one man He could not save, ft was certainly possible to find a note of joy in the cry “Tt is finished,” the joy that was inseparable from the successful accomplishment of a task. It was the joyfulness shown by the early Christians, very often under most trying circumstances, that impressed the heathen world. It was by' means of their joy that they turned the world up side down. St. Paul again had many things to depress him, but' he refused to allow himself to be depressed. The words of the text “Rejoice in the Lord, always” were written by St. Paul from a prison at Rome, when he was chained by the wrist to a. Roman soldier, The Archbishop was sure it was a mistake for Christians to go about with long faces and to he over-conscious or the fact that they were miserable sinners. No doubt they were sinners but they need not always be dwelling on the fact. They were not going to commend Christianity to others if they i* . ' * always took the worst view of everything.