Council of Churches.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 257, 3 November 1904, Page 3

Council of Churches.

ANNUAL MEETING. The second annual meeting in connection with the Council of Churches was held in the Presbyterian Hall on Wednesday evening. The attendance was large. Tne Rev. S. S. Osborne, who pr«/id<.d, after devotional exercises called upon, the honorary secrctarj and treasurer, Rev. W. It. Wollcy, to read the annual report, which dealt with the work undertaken during the year, and detailed the action taken upon the little reading : in schools, licensing, and othci matters. The balance sheet showed that the year started with a credit ' of 15s Id, and ended with a debit ot 16s 3d. The Rev. F. G. Evans delivered an address on "the responsibility of parents in regaid to religious training." in the course of which he said one of the most important branches of church work was that undertaken amongst the young, and if they could influence these the council had quite justified its existence. It was the primary duty of every parent to sec to the religious education of the children ; nothing could remove that responsibility • it might bo said that there were the Sunday schools constituted for that pu.pose, but these in his opinion were only subsidiary, and could never take the place of parents. The ideal place would be where no Sunday school was necessary, the training being done solely fo the home. Inese were created only because parents lulled to realise the disasters that follow the neglect of religious training. The large ino.xmse of petty theft was due largely to the absence of religious instruction. The spirit of gambling, immoral in that it leads to a desire to get what is not worked for, was also to be attributed to the lack of restraint. The want o'f a sense of duty— and this lay at the root of all evil—was rife, pleasure being often placed first. He characterised the holding; of a public picnic on the Lord's Day as a retrograde step ; surely there was sufficient amount of pleasure to be obtained during the week ? What was the root of this excessive love of pleasure but the want of religion 5 What the council wanted to do was to impress parents with a sense of their responsibility j n the matter ; with a realisation that the Sunday schools cannot do the work they are neglecting. He had heard of children of respectable lamilies who knew nothing whatever of religious subjects, who had never heard of Jesus ; and this in a christian community ! This fact must be brought home : That the very future for this life and for the life to como rests on th"* religious instruction given to children. The Rev. J. N. Buttle spoke on " The Church and Politica" The question might be asked, Ought the church to enter into politics ? It certainly should not enter into party politics as there were men within its fold of all shades of political thought, and their aim should be broadminded enough to embrace all these. Hut there were some questions on which the church should speak, and he thought thf! function of the church was to lead the Christian community against those forms of evfil which exist amongst us. Speaking of the liguor trade the reverend gentleman said one of the trade stated they were never afraid of the prohibitionists, but when the churches united together they gave the greatest blow to liquor traffic in thlis town. The council agreed that the religious element should be brought to bear on the life of every child, gnd the speaker dwelt on the urgent necessity for such action. He gave an experience of his, in which there figured a child of six years, on whose face was stamped the impress of evil tendencies. It was not simply the child life that suffered but the fa-j mily, the community and the nation.) Though he would be sorry to see a qtientjon like the English Education Act raised in this colony, yet our system needed revision, in the matter of Bible in schools. Ho believed the time was coming wjhtn.