THE EMPTY PEW—AND WHY?

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 916, 8 March 1930, Page 8

THE EMPTY PEW—AND WHY?

THE QUIET CORNER.

(Written for THE SUN by the Rev. Charles Chandler.) T \ESPITE the vigorous church life of New Zealand (which seems to be in advance of church life in Australia) even the most optimistic cleric must admit that the ‘‘common people do not hear us gladly.” Why is it that Tom, Dick and Harry together with their respective wives and children do not fill the family pews as they did in the “good old days” of yore? I contend that it is not because they do not feel the need. The spirit of God. still wrestles with men in their workshops and in their homes, as ever it did with Elijah on Mt. Carmel. It seems that by other means than those prescribed in our various books of common prayer, these folk exercise the faith that is in them. Maybe they feel a lack of reality in ordinary services of the Church. This, I believe, is the crux of the rchole question. “The people, whatever be their faults, deal ivith realities,” says one Hubert Handley. “Blacksmiths and teamsters." observes Emerson, “do not trip in their speech; it is a shower of bullets.” “It is Cambridge men who correct themselves, and begin again at every half sentence, and swerve from the matter to the expression.” Life to us common people is real. So too is the struggle to maintain life. We tire of vague generalities, and want something that “finds us." something that strikes our humanity. Religious teachers must learn to tether their abstractions; and to bring the things of God right down to the most pressing needs of life. NEXT WEEK: STAND BY!