INTEREST IN CHURCH MATTERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 97, 13 April 1908, Page 4

INTEREST IN CHURCH MATTERS.

To tnc Editor. Sir—According to a local in your paper of recent (late Rev. Osborne says the. prominent citizens of New Plymouth take no interest in Church matters. Well, you see, Mr. Editor, the fear of Hell of late years has vanished. That was the whip that kept the wretch in , order according to Bobby Burns. The, congregations now are as intelligent as the parson. Take away the fear ol Hell and the masses are quite indiU'er- ' cut. Mr. Flanagan is en tour aud taking a fat collection every time. Why could he not stay in J»ndon and look alter the heathen where once a week, according to his teaching, a sort of compromise is made with our consciences. We enter what we call the House ol (foil, as if the whole universe were not the abiding place, and each of us were not or ought to lie the living temple—and we declare ourselves miserable sinners. Sunday: Un that day we abstain to a certain extent from worldy occupation, and endeavor, sometimes with a reasonable degree of success, to appear as gloomy and morose as if we actually lielievcd that the Infinite Being, who is love itself, and who willed that all men should lie happy on the simple condition ol obedience, could )i ( . pleased or propitiated by the s[K'ctacle of austere countenances ami mortifying practices, lint on the morrow, we rcstini,. our buying and selling, our cheating and overreaching, our adulterations, and our sordid practices of all kinds, with a sort of tacit understanding that we can live for ourselves during tile rest of the week and make our peace with God by means of putting up certain prayers, singing hymns, and listening to certain edifying discourses 011 tlie Sunday following. And so we go 011 from year to year, balancing the worldliness 01 six days by the devotional exercise of the seventh, as w c imagine, by keeping a kind of debit and credit account with the Almighty.—l am, etc., I'AKIRIKIRI.