UNSECTARIAN SERVICE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1785, 5 February 1918, Page 1

UNSECTARIAN SERVICE.

CATHOLIC PRIEST’S COMMENDATION.

Speaking in regard to the work of the Y.M.C.A. at the front, a returned soldier said the value of the organisation was enhanced by its unsectai’ian nature. On one Sunday after the battle of Messines he had seen in a Red Triangle hut a Roman Catholic mass in the early morning, followed by a service for Jews. Then followed the Church of England chaplain, and later a Presbyterian padre ministered to his flock.

In a letter to his father, a wellknown business man, now in khaki, has written from London: —“We went on Sunday to a Jesuit Church in Farm Street, where Father Bernard Yaughen is still in charge. It is a very beautiful church, with about 16 small altars, eight on each side. Mass started at 12 o’clock, and church came out at about 1.15 p.m. There was an appeal in the sermon for funds for the huts for s9ldiers, which the Catholic Women’s League is running. I have heard many a good sermon, and many a good appeal, but this was certainly the finest I have ever listened to. I don’t know the priest’s name, but he was a fine-looking man, with great style, a beautiful voice, and used fine language. Most of the appeal was an eulogy of the Y.M.C.A,, and their work. He said that the old idea of the Y.M.C.A. was that it was a body run by old gentlemen of some wealth and very narrow views, as a hobby, and strictly evangelical, but at the present time the thing had outgrown all that, and any man who saw their work and did not recognise that it was a noble effort done by gentlemen in the greatest Christian spirit, and doing incalculable good, was a bigot, and he for one was delighted at the chance of recognising from the pulpit their gerat worth. He said the Y.M.C.A. often lend their huts to our priests at the front to say Mass in, and certainly opened my eyes when he said their bill for Red Triangle stationery alone for soldiers was over £1,500 per week.”