THE MISTAKE IN CHURCHES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume VII, Issue 239, 1 February 1889, Page 2

THE MISTAKE IN CHURCHES.

A few years ago the late Lord Shaftesbury gave utterance to the fo lowing to a reporter of a London paper : — " Churches and chapels no doubt do a very good work in their own way, and the Church in particular is doing now very much better work in very many ways than any one would have believed possible eighty years ago. But they are sadly deficient in aggressive spirit, and they are far too much taken up with looking after their own people. They seem to imagine* that it is suflU oient to open a building and let it be known that religion can be had there, whereas that has never sufficed and j will nerer suffice to bring the masses ( to religion. Now, as in the days of

Id, you must go into the highways md the byways and compel them to ome in. The working classes have Lever come in, and will never come n when thingjs are as they are toLay. H the masses of the people ire to be brought into the fold of >rganised Christianity the whole ionceptionof the duty of the Church ; nust be changed. There must be ictive aggressive work; open-air preaching ; house-to-house visitation ; md, in short, every means employed: ;o bring the truth home to the hearts and consciences of all thosenrho are in the neighbourhood. This 3an never be done by purely clerical agency. Lay agency is indispensable to the fulfilment of the Church mission. But the efforts of tthtf. Church to make vie of the laity ar% ■■ perpetually thwarted and crippled by the refusal of the clergy to give their lay coadjutors free hands. Liberty is the essence of effective Service. I was talking only the other day to a bishop, and said to him, 'I have no doubt that in your diocese there are at this moment nine hundred godly working mem who would only be too glad to cooperate with you in the. work of! '•; spreading the Gospel among theirs '■' i fellow men, but the difficulty .is witfr. > the clergy. They are wLUng enough .v that theirj : laynten vrshojild eo-..b operate, but it must be oft. ■:'■{ their terms. If a man- wishes- ■ to take part, say in an open air Bervicja, . . ■ instead of being content with ascertaining that he isintelligent and pious, and then bidding him do what best he can to accomplish his mission,, they impose a host of stipulations and regulations : He must not read except such chapters as they direct, he must not use such and such prayers, he must not go to such and such places : in short, the poor man finds himself swathed in swaddling clothes to such an extent that he loses heart and you lose your lay agent. Depend upon it the condition of sue* cess is the allowing of a large liberty to those whose hearts are in the right place; that we have discoveiefi in the working of the open air mission. It is absurd to attempt to direct in all details the operations of men who are in earnest about their work, and who, being face to face with its .difficulties, are far better judges of how to proceed than those who are silting, at home drawing up plans and schemes for their guidence. — What a. contrast this offers to the latest cable* gram of the meeting of the Colonial Bishops in London, and their re*-. ported opinion of their assistants vis " that the men are milksops, or men of small intellectual calibre, quite unfitted for the positions they hold." It would seem wise to practise the advice given above and secure tho services of earnest laymen. ,