AGAINST IRRELIGION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 178, 29 June 1937, Page 5

AGAINST IRRELIGION.

SERMON AT ST. ANDREW’S. “I desire to speak to-night on one of the most significant aspects oi human life: our representative capacity. We all have in us the power to stand for something, and the way we use it determines, as hardly anything else does, our personal quality.” Thus said Rev. John Hubbard, At.A., 8.D., in opening the second of a series of sermons on “The Revolt Against Irreligion” to a largo, congregation in St. Andrew’s Fresbyterian Church, on Sunday. Mr Hubbard took as his text the words of Jesus Christ, “Ye shall be Aly witnesses,” and lie went on to say that the words were a direct appeal to the representative capacity of the people, “ion can be more than yourselves,” declared the preacher with emphasis. “You have tue power to stand tor high principles and worthy enterprises in your generation; hardly any element in you is more influential than that power to identify yourself with something greater than yourself. As we turn to cons Aler the application of this matter to our personal lives, note in the first place that we all do possess this representative capacity; that the right use of it is man’s glory; and that the feast of us can stand for the greatest things.” The preacher went on to say that if truth was so deeply embedded in the soil of human nature he would turn to two special applications of it in our human relationships. “In this contused and turbulent generation,” lie asked, “what are we standing for in our moral loyalities? There are two kinds of great men. Some, by the sheer brilliance of their intellectual genius, are lifted to the heights, but others, much less highly endowed, find greatness in another way. They perceive in their generation the real movements of thought and life to which the future belongs; identify themselves with them and stand for them. The first kind of greatness—individual brilliance —is the gift of destiny to a very few. The second kind of greatness —identifying oneself with the real movements of one’s time —is open to us all. Could there ever have been a generation with more worthwhile tilings to stand for than to-day? Any way you look at life, what magnificent things there are to stand for to remind people of, when they think ol you,” declared Air Hubbard. “There is honesty—plain everyday honesty in business and politics. There is decency in private morals. There is a better economic system, more beneficial for all the people. 9 here are international causes like the World Court. AVhat tilings there are to stand for!” The preacher added that one heard a great deal about the temptations which lurked in the city of Palmerston North. “I celebrate them,” he declared; “with joy I celebrate them: the temptations to music, to art, to social service, to the support of goodwill, and international concord. Tlow can men and women live thinking only of temptations downward when there are so many alluring temptations upward?”

Dealing with the second application, the preacher asked his congregation what they were standing for in religion. “There are so many in our day rebellious about religion, and in particular, in revolt against the Church, ’ he said. “And they are not standing for anything in this g eat realm, recognised as the source of their deepest inspiration by the early saints, and as a social necessity by such modern radicals as Havelock Ellis, who says, ‘People without religion are always dangerous.’ ” Mr Hubbard made an eloquent appeal for a stand for Jesus Christ. “Tf a man stands for Him he makes a contribution to the world’s life of a quality unapproachable if he stands for anything else,” lie concluded.