NORTHCOTE METHODISTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 941, 7 April 1930, Page 14

NORTHCOTE METHODISTS

FAREWELL TO MINISTER The Rev. J. H. Allen, who for the past four years has been circuit minister to the Birkenhead-Northcote Methodist Churches, conducted liis final service in St. Paul’s Methodist Church, Northcote, last evening, before a crowded church. Special anthems were sung by the choir, and a large number of junior members were initiated into full membership of the church. The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was administered at the close of the service. A special service was held in the Sunday school in the afternoon, when addresses were delivered by Mr. and' Mrs. Gilmour on missionary service Papua, where they have been engaged in missionary work for many years. At the conclusion of the address, Mr. and Mrs. Allen were presented with parting gifts by the Sunday School and Bible class scholars. The Rev. W. W. Avery, of Eltham, will be his successor, Mr. Allen taking charge of the Methodist Church. Remuera. A combined farewell of both churches will be tendered to the minister at a social to he held at Birkenhead this week.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE SERMON “Unreality” was the subject of the lesson-sermon in First Church of Christ, Scientist, Auckland, yesterday. The golden text was from Proverbs xxx. S: “Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches: feed me with food convenient for me.” Among the citations was the following from -the Bible: “Thou wilt show me the path of life; in Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”- —Psalms xvi. 11. The lesson-sermon also included the following passage from the Christian Science textbook: “Man understands spiritual existence in proportion as his treasures of truth and love are enlarged. Mortals must gravitate godward. their affections and aims grow spiritual—-they must hear the broader interpretations of being, and gain some proper sense of the infinite—in order that sin and mortality may be put off. „