DIVIDED CHRISTENDOM,

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVI, Issue 16750, 4 January 1915, Page 8

DIVIDED CHRISTENDOM,

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, —Efforts are made in various places to unite the Church on political and economic questions, but all these efforts are doomed to failure until the Church returns to " the Apostles' teaching," and yields no further obedience to " the commandments of men," which cause divisions. When that hapoy time comes, then will be nuiuifested wherever the Church exists the spirit of the first Christian Church, and political and economic injustice cannot live long in any country pervaded by that spirit, which is the spirit of true brotherhood, justice and benevolence. The rulers of tho ancient Roman Empire perceived that the united and victorious Church of Christ would' ultimately destroy militarism/land monopoly, and all the unrighteousness of their rule; therefore they persecuted the Church. The persecution, however, accelerated rather than retarded Church' progress, which went on the world over until Christians became the majority. Then the Emperor Constantino patronised the Church, and the Church, or rather the majority of its members, departed widely from "the Apostles' teaching," to which in the the first century tho Church steadfastly adhered. The most fiery persecutions only served to preserve the unity of the Church and increase its membership, but State patronage and sectarianism arrested its progress by destroying the unity and quenching the divine spirit; which had hitherto animated it. We have no State patronage of the Church in New Zealand, but" Ave have sectarianism, which makes more sceptics than converts, and most effectually hinders the material as well as the moral, intellectual and spiritual progress of this little nation. What Christians have to do to berid' ! of sectarianism is to return to the Apostles' teaching. Of the first Christian Church it is recorded that " they continued steadfastly in the Apostles' teaching, and in tho fellowship (or offertory), and in the breaking of the bread (the Lord's Supper or feast), and in the prayers.'' "The Acts of the Apostles" and the Epistles show us what the Apostles, in obedience to tho command' of Christ, taught and instituted, and no room is left for dispute and division in regard to any of these matters, for they are not matters of. opinion, but .simply plain facts. All the divisions' in the Church result from adding to or taking from these facts. If Christians would meet together to consider these matters in the love of truth rather than of party, and in 'ie love of God and of one another, their divisions', would' soon be healed.—l am, etc., - t EDWARD T. EVANS. Otahuhu, December 27, 1914;