ST. ANDREW’S CHURCH.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 305, 8 September 1875, Page 2

ST. ANDREW’S CHURCH.

SPECIAL SERMON. On Sunday evening last the Rev. W. H. Root preached a sermon in St. Andrew’s Church, having especial reference to that class of worshippers who neglect the public ordinances of the Church with which, they are respectively connected. There was a good attendance. The rev. gentleman took for his text, Hebrews, 10th ch. 25th verse —“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves, as the manner of some is,” &c. —from which he discoursed most appropriately. He observed that in the colonies there was a lamentable falling off in the attendance of professing Christians on the means of grace, who, in the mother country, scarcely absented themselves from them ; and Gisborne he regretted to say, was, unfortunately, no exception to this anomalous state of affairs. The various excuses urged by people for this remisnass were pointed out and commented upon. The most prominent of these excuses was, that people said they had been so long without a minister that they grew indifferent as to whether they attended divine service or not. Another excuse was that they could read the Bible and religious literature athome,and derive as much spiritual benefit from these sources as if they had complied with the injunction of the apostle, as set forth in the text, which excuses were, of course, utterly fallacious and untenable. No blessing could be expected where public worship was neglected. It was through the instrumentality of- preaching that people in all ages of the Church became true Christians; and notably so in Great Britain, of late, at the vast gatherings at which Messrs. Sankey and Moody preached. Mr. Root, in conclusion, urged his hearers to attend the various churches to which they had attached themselves, for three reasons, namely, for the sake of their church, for the sake of their minister, and, above all, for their own sake.