ST. MARY'S CHURCH.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 319, 5 June 1911, Page 8

ST. MARY'S CHURCH.

VISIT OF BISHOP CROSSLEi. Dr. Crossley, Bishop of Auckland, preached at St. Mary's Church last night to a very large congregation. His Lordship took his text from Acts 2-47, "The Lord added to the Church daily," which St. Paul referred to the Pentecostal festival. There was something peculiarly human, he said, about the feast of Whitsuntide. God waited for a great day in human estimation to make a great start. He might, of course, have sent his mission of the Holy Spirit in visible form immediately subsequent to the ascension of their blessed Lord to Heaven, or he might have wailed for the anniversary of thu death of His most holy Son. But he took a time that he knew the people valued, and knew, and loved, and re-incarnated it as a living symbol of that greater truth which Christianity stood for. After referring to the signmcance of the Feast of Pentecost to the Jews,' the preacher said that God took that. Jewish commemoration and made it a Catholic festival. His Lordship ...velt on the meaning of the word "catholic," which signified "all," and spoko of the new meaning of .the Pentecostal day after the coming of tho Holy Ghost, the birtliday of wlmt was his body, the Holy Catholic Church. Still declaring with the significance of the word '•cat.nolic," he quoted the last commandment oi the Saviour, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." Christ stood for and led into all truth, the catholic truth—not a bit of the truth we like, leaving out what we aon't like, not the bit that suits us, leaving out that which doesn't suit us, but all the truth. His Church was the Church of all power, to teach all nations all truth, and would last for all time. Whitsuntide might be looked on as the birthday of what, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, was called the Church. But men asked, "What is truth, and where is truth?" for there were so many voices and contradictions in the world. There was only one answer, "Truth is uod/' wherever and however manifested, cither by intuition, in nature, but far more defined was God to be found in Jesus Christ our Lord. If men were perplexed, let them centralise on this: "Did Christ reveal God?" How much more difficult must it have been for the Jews in those days to apprehend God than for us, for He had not then been revealed. That revelation was delayed for Divine reasons, and it was made at the right moment in language all could read. He had come to this earth of ours, lived our life, to be of us, and to be for evnt.at one with the beings He called into Christianity. Even now some men childishly rebelled, and asked how God could understand the temptations and difficulties which beset them to-day, but Christ had also encountered everything which they found hard to-day—everything that was little, and narrow, of prejudice, lying, false, and unjust until at length they crucified Him. Christ lived to-day with us in the Catholic Church, and so far as it was true that the Catholic Church is the life of Jesus Christ. That was wihj they loved the Church and clung to it, witnessing for the truth, for alter all the Church could not create truth, but could witness to it, tradite it, and giuie it.

"Bo baptised," God commanded at the first Whitsuntide, and they were baptised. "Go and forgive," and they tried to forgive. "Go antl give," and how they gave, and the Lord added daily to the church. "Do you wish the church to be added to?" he asked, and said he would like to press that question cles« home to the consciences of his hearers. Unless they desired 80 to add to the church, he was rather suspicious if they really believed, because he was certain that anyone who really believed in Jesus Christ as his brother, his Saviour, and as his ideal for the race must wish to add to the church. But that morning, when the collection was in aid of the Melanesian mission—one of the grandest assets in the national career ef New Zealand—the offertory had been no larger than for an ordinary serviee. God was able to add to his church in those Melanesian Islands, not by miracles, but by the lives and help and principle of Christians. The Rev. John Wilkinson acted as the Bishop's chaplain, and Mr. T. Woodard rend the lessons.

At the confirmation service In the afternoon there were eighty confirmations.