WHEN THE CONGREGATION APPLAUDED.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2012, 7 August 1919, Page 1

WHEN THE CONGREGATION APPLAUDED.

To call forth applause at-a religious gathering on a Sunday in a Scottish community would probably have been considered almost an impossibility a few years ago (remarks the Southland Times). But the public mind has changed considerably of late, and at Sunday’s thanksgiving service in the Municipal Theatre hand-clapping was indulged in more than once, always, it must be stated, when something of an exceptionally stirring nature was said by the speakers. There was no doubt about the plaudits when the Rev. H. A. Sharp told of an experience in Auckland. While speaking on the street he had been approached by a man, who asked him if his (the speaker’s) church was prepared to support a man who, rather than break the Sixth Commandment and be a murderer, went to gaol for his convictions, “My reply was,” declared Mr Sharp, “that we are prepared to support any man who wants to keep the Commandments, and who refuses to be a murderer, but we will’not stand by any man who refuses to defend the weak against the murderer.”