"WHY DO WE FAIL?"

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 94, 17 May 1909, Page 3

"WHY DO WE FAIL?"

KEV. T. KEITH EWEN AT THE THEATRE ROYAL. "Why do we fail!" was a- question that occupied the attention on Sunday afternoon of the Kev. T. Keith Ewen and a gathering of rather more than two hundred men at the Theatre Royal. The Mayor, Mr. G. Tisch, presided over the meeting, and the Kev. John Laird, pastor of the local Baptist Church, was also on the platform. The service was in connection with the. special mission now being conducted by the Rev. Air. Ewen at the Gill Street Baptist Church. The Mayor, in introducing the speaker, stated that he was always ready and always would he ready to preside and assist at any meeting held for the uplifting and betterment of the race. "Failure must be admitted," said the preacher, "in the political world, in the commercial world, in the social realm, and in the religious circle." There were many who were constantly reminding the Church of its failure, but those who were so glibly critical were generally people whose sympathies were estranged i from rather than with, the Church. Although the Church of Jesus Christ was not and was never intended to be a political machine, it had always been the first to attack social evils, and our heritage of wonderful privileges and blessings was ours only because of the lights of uiir forefathers for civic and religious liberty. In this connection he would maintain, as history proved, that the Church had always' been the friend of the worker and on the side of the weak. The Church had failed, and the worker had failed, but the ideals of the Church still remained in the unsullied grandeur of Jesus Christ." He had very little sympathy with the Presbyterian General Assembly which had allowed the Federal Premier to dress them down as he had done the other day. "The Church of God stands for a clean community," emphatically declared the preacher. He quoted the Book of Job, chapter 34, and verse 29: "When He giveth quietness, who then can make trouble? And when He hidet-h His face, who then .can behold him? 1 whether it lie done against u nation, or against a mnn only." In those words, said the .preacher, was .enunciated the great and farreaching principle that God was the great source and the final cause of national prosperity ami of individual blessing. "National prosperity" was only another way of saying "Divine blessing." No number of ironclads could save, the nation from ruin and degradation without the blessing of God. nnd no nation and no individual would prosper if' God hid His face from that nation or person. They heard a lot about economics; but they could not have economics without character; they could not have character without God. The speaker declared his entift 1 sympathy- wit,h the worker who clamored for his rights, and with the women who clamored for theirs; but who of them thought of giving God His rights? God was being bowed out of the political and social world, and how could they expect to be free from blunders, bewilderment and entanglement when God was dishonored? Reading from Daniel, chapter 5, verse 23, "And God, in whos'e hand thy breath is, and whose are all thv ways, thou hast not glorified," the preacher said that God's most emphatic condemnation of gin was of the siu of omission rather than of commission; for not believing, nojtjloing, not loving. If they asked - the star, the ilower the sunbeam, ."What dost thou here?" the answer would be: "I am fulfilling the purpose for which I was created." Ask it o« man, and the answer must be: "I am pleasing myself; I am having my own' way." That wae the cause of failure. That was the cause of lives being blight. Ed by sin. That wa6 the cause of entanglement to-day, and no political enactments would ever grapple successfully with the social and other great I'vils until God was recognised, honored and obeyed. Man was' made to glorify God; to live a noble and beautiful life; to be a benefactor and a blessing; not to please himself; to grab anil grasp after money; to cheat his itcijjlibor. The neaclier concluded with an earnest appeal to those present to put God first i in their daily life, which was the one i way of conquering man's aptness for failure and sin.