Church Has Failed To Grip People

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 34, 3 May 1927, Page 9

Church Has Failed To Grip People

NEED FOR NEW IDEAL BEAUTY'S NEGLECTED GOSPEL I “I think the time has come when j the Christian church must begin to ; preach a new gospel—or shall I say ! preach the gospel from another point | of view.” stated the Rev. Mr. Niblock at a town-planning meeting at the University Hall last evening. “The church has not gripped the people. We must face the facts and be honest. We have not done what we ought to have done. We have not ! reached the hearts of the men and the | women. We have not taught them the ! beauty of life. “We have not brought that throb into the minds that comes through gazing on beauty and realising its meaning, and I feel it is for such societies as this to assist the church by making an environment that is full of such ideals and has such an action on the minds of the people that when the church’s message is preached the people will be ready to respond, ultimately to bring forth and know that inward beauty is the aitn of the true life.” The speaker said he had been all round the world, into some of the most beautiful of the world’s places, but nowhere had he seen anything to surpass Auckland, built, on its hills, as one saw it on a fine summer morning entering the harbour “But when you get into the city, in its streets, up against some of the horrid wooden houses, into streets where the grass grows up fo your knees, it makes you feel sore because so much possible beauty has been spoilt. It could be made a gem, the that lieth four-square/ it could express beauty beautifully. “Let us try and make it s ich a city. Everyone is shaped by environment. The strength of a man’s character is the strength and measure of his ideas. Particularly in young peop’e they develop in the light of what you place them in day after day. They are receiving ideas from the buildings and streets. These ideas are moulding their characters. No mind can rise higher than the fixed environment allows. “So let us make our city beautiful, train the people to the beautiful, and make our people of the same specimen as that fine manhood that comprised New Zealand’s Main Body.”