Church Work and Life

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 573, 28 January 1929, Page 14

Church Work and Life

MESSAGES FROM THE PULPITS

RELIGION AND SCIENCE SERMON TO CONGRESS CANON ARCHDALL’S VIEWS “I am convinced that if we can get rid of the object of misunderstanding that separates religious and scientific people into two sects we should once more become a Christian people." The above assertion was made by the headmaster of King’s College, Canon H. K. Archdall, M.A., during his sermon at the Cathedral of St. Mary last evening, when preaching to a congregation which included delegates to the Science Congress of the New Zealand Institute, at present in session in Auckland. Referring to the mutual relations of religion and science. Canon Archdal! reviewed the three main periods of scientific progress in history—the great days of Greece, the Renaissance of the ltith century, and the progress during our own day. He noted the advances made by astrology, geology, biology, history, etc., which made one exclaim with the psalmist: “What is man that thou art mindful of him?” The ever-increasing problem of knowledge made man doubt the possibility of ever knowing anything. Science contends that the universe is a chaos. Physics tell that a table and chair are only phenomena—depending on electric forces. Religion seeks to bring together all these points of viqw. “We know the world as lava of life, and the mind in us as matter. We do not know what matter is, we do not even know what life is until the mfnd becomes expressed through it.” THE STAGE OF LIFE We are on the stage of life, and we have little reason to demand that we should be admitted beyond the scenes while our business is on the stage. “We cannot know the full story of the path of Creation descending from God, but the world is a solid fact, which we have to accept, rather than account for, and in which we have, to seek to play a worthy part. And the way to learn to play a worthy part is to work out what we can know of the return journey, the path of salvation upward to God, from whom we come and to Whom we go and in Whom we find our true selves. “It is the duty of man to apprehend and strive to operate with the Divine will as far as possible.” In regard to Darwin’s theory of evolution. Canon Archdall claimed that it gave no guide by which one order of beings could be pronounced to be higher than another, and the only justifiable deduction to be made from it was organic nature had a tendency toward stability. He also criticised

| the views of the German, Sell open- ■ hauer, asking if mere living without any relation to the basic principles of | life were a thing of any value, i “The entire world and even man is I destined to pass away. Lust of the ! flesh and the eye will pass, but beauty, ( goodness and truth will prevail against time and all the ravages of it.” SCIENCE BENEFITS RELIGION Theology and science have sometimes | become jealous of one another. Com- ; pleta reconciliation between them is i not yet in sight. It is hardly yet to be in sight. Yet there was little reason for hostility between religion, science and art, continued Canon Archdall. “Science has done much to purify religion. It has helped to squash the literal conception of Genesis. It had done much to bring people back to the word’s own teaching on the question of sickness and pestilence. It has shown the close interconnection between matter and spirit and prepared the way for a fresh understanding of the sacramental nature of our whole terrestrial life and of the Christian sacraments in particular. Scientific history, continued the preacher, had given us a renewed understanding of the Scriptures, prob- j ably the largest cultured advance of i the last 50 years. In praying for the divine blessing on the proceedings of the Science Congress of the New Zealand Institute, Canon Archdall concluded by saying that the greatest nation of the future will be the one which finds out bow to relate her science and idealism in fruitful co-operation. LESSON-SERMON ON TRUTH CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCHES “Truth” was the subject of the lesson-sermon in all Churches of Christ, Scientist, yesterday. The golden text was, “The Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generations.” Among the citations which comprised the lesson-sermon was the following from the Bible: “And these signs shall follow them that believe. In My name shall they cast out devils. They shall speak with new tongles. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.” The lesson-sermon also included the following passages from the Christian Science textbook, “Science and Health, With Key to the Scriptures,” by Mary Baker-Eddy: “Truth casts out all evils and materialistic methods with the actual spiritual law —the law which gives sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, voice to the dumb, feet to the lame.”

SPIRITUAL DEADNESS

SOUL OF THE YOUNG PRESBYTERIAN’S CONCERN “They Knew Not Until the Flood Came” was the text upon which the Rev. W. M. Clow, until recently principal of the United Free Church College, Glasgow, who is now revisiting Auckland after an absence of 60 years, based a sermon in St. David’s Presbyterian Church last evening, on the decline j in young people of moral earnest- | ness. ! ITR. CLOW said there was a deadx A ness of the soul concerning things spiritual. There were those with no vision of the eternal, no respect for those things which. 30 years ago, were dear to the millions of Christendom. It ! was reflected even in the books read | to-day by young people, books which would show how the moral tone had sunk. There were those whose whole lives were conditioned on pleasure, those with no zest for public service. There were people in every city and countryside to-day who never worshipped and never prayed, and those again who were silent about the things of God, because they were in ignorance of them. Some might know the name of God, and might dabble in the ethical and political issues of the time, but they knew nothing of God, duty and immortality. BEWARE OF THE FLOOD What was the result of this moral insensibility? Travel through India, the ruins of the seats of empires— Persia, Babylon, Egypt, Greece and Rome, and what did they find? The flood came on those spiritually insensible. As a student in Germany about 30 years ago the speaker said he had had an admiration of the learning, more broadly founded, more deeply embedded than our own. But one would have gasped at their worldliness. The flood came. Then there was spiritual insensibility in their own personalities and lives. There were those well-educated and well-born, with promise of great futures, who would scoff at the simple folk who prayed and cherished their family Bibles. They would hold their heads high, but the flood would come. It might be thought, perhaps, he was too severe, but this spiritual insensibility miglit come to dull young aspirations and to deaden the soul.

BOXING IN SYDNEY

(Australian and N.Z. Press Association) SYDNEY, Sunday.

At the Sydney Stadium last evening. La Barba, Sst 7ilb„ in his initial fight in Australia, knocked out Billy McAlister, Bst 3tlb, in the fourth round. At the Leichardt Stadium on Friday evening. Wally Hancock knocked out Eddie Butcher in the fifth round of a 15-rounds boxing contest.

Billy Grime returned to Sydney yesterday from America. He says he hopes that as he has changed his fighting methods, as a result of his two years’ stay in the United States, he will be able to do well in Australia.