ANGLICAN MISSION.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 371, 21 June 1911, Page 2

ANGLICAN MISSION.

REV. A. H. COLVILE IN TE KUITI. AN ELOQUENT SERMON. During the past week a series of mission services have been conducted at the Anglican Church, Te Kuiti, bj the Rev. A. H. Colvile, which have drawn interested congregations on each occasion. Mr Colvile is a mar whom any religious body might be proud to have associated with it. He is possessed of a magnetic personality, and grips the listener from the outset— not by flamboyant appeals, but by sober demonstrations of the vital truths of existence. His voice is rich and full, and penetrated to every part of the building. On Sunday night he preached his final appeal to a large congregation, and based his sermon on three verses from the 55th Psalm and the 11th chapter of St. Matthew, the 2th verse—"Come unto me, all ye that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Those wonderful words, said Mr Colvile, were words that were so perfectly familiar that he was almost afraid to take them for his text, but he asked his listeners to keep them in mind and to try and imagine what the "rest" was for all men. Were the words, after all, only expressive of a mood? They all had moods at times, and if one man wrote the Psalms he must have been a man of many moods. Was it the voice of the egotist we heard — the man who never gives credit for good intentions, and suspects all our motives, and who says "I'm not going to work any longer for a Master who won't reward my services"? There was no rest for the egotist. A lot of people covered up their own sensitiveness by dwelling on self. The egotist would never get any peace, until he got away from himself, and until that mirror he was so fond of was smashed from side to side. But the words of the psalmist were something more than the complaint of an egotist. The words came home to some of them with real significance and meaning. Again—it might be shipwreck a man feared. Such a man felt that if he could only get away from his place or company all would go right, and he would have rest. Or it might be just the burden of care and worry one gets from all those thousands of cares and worries that make up home life. "Oh —to get, away from it." We cannot afford to take the words of the psalmist as being the words of the egotist or as the words of a passing mood, and he was not going to speak of the rest the world offers, with its constant pleasures and amusements. Many excellent and worthy people said: "This is such a wicked world anJ only in the after life can rest be found." To some people the idea of death was the idea of rest. With tho;e who have seen friends fail through sickness, death may seem almost perfect rest. We we'e bound to sympathise to the full with such aching sorrows, but we must remind them that death won't deliver from sorrow. There were many things we leave behind us on earth, but one thing we take with us—our own personality. "My individuality ia not going to change because my body is gone from me. That common belief that death is rest ignores the fact that death is only a change." We saw some man drinking himself to death perhaps, or another devoting himself to frivolity. What was it all about? They were trying to get away from self. But when we left all this b«hind us, how would our past life look then? Then along came the world with anotheplan. Society— men and women—were looked at apart from God, and in order to attack the evils of this world they were asked to use worldly weapons. By taking away the evils of this world they hoped to give rest. He did not run down the reformer, who had done much to better the lot of men, by taking temptation out of their way, and even although he repudiated Christ, he was Christ's best friend. But when he puts himself in the place of Christ and says he can give rest; when he says he can do this for us, it is not good enough. He knew the great fascination there was for young men in an energetic reformer. As a young man at Oxford he himself was a Socialist and believed Socialism without Christ would do. The materialist Socialist comes to a man hemmed in by bad conditions, saying the world has need of him, that it is all the fault of selfish and corrupt society, that they were going to abolish poverty and give him freedom and rest. "My friends, those words are on right lines, but specious and encouraging though they be, they are not enough to satisfy the souls of men. If all the irregularities were got rid of to-morrow, yet would men and women cry out for rest. All the injustices at present; all the poverty and misery, weigh very light when we think of the rest we desire." It was like the man in a raging fever, trying to find a cool place on his pillows, when all the time the fever was within. He knew they could get some temporary rest by change of environment, but if it was the soul that was the cause of the unrest, they might search the wide world over and it would be as with the poet of old, who in the evening wished for the morning and in the morning wished for the evening. They knew the rest they got by going with their troubles to a friend who was stronger and better than themselves. He listened to them, and somehow half the burden rolled away—Jesus Christ was such a friend. H® did not free us from our burdens, but he gave us the power to bear them. Only by responsibility could a man make progress. Jesus Christ did not take temptation away from us. He did something better. He took us with him, by his side, into battle, and in that constant union with him there was rest. It was not less light, but more light they needed. It was the steady following of the path that Hand pointed the way, that rest was found in. It was in bear-

ing the burden and accepting the responsibility. In that way should we find rest. After the ordinary service Mr Colvile added a few last words. He likened the way of the converted to that <>f a rough road. Some churches were like boats on the waters. A few were rowing— the rest were merely passengers. Holy Communion was intended for the man who might have fallen during the week, but was desirous of being better. Consistency was not always a virtue and on a low level might be worse than lapsing. He was hopeful the mission had been productive of good.