SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 November 1915, Page 9 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING.

{SERMON PREACHED BY REV. A. I!. COLVTLE, M.A., r.t St. Mary's Church, New Plymouth, on Sunday, November !. ''That I may speak boldly a 3 I ought to speak."—Ephes. vi.:2C. It has often been said, and often been proved, that the hardest thing a Christian has to face in what is called public life is unpopularity with his fellows, and particularly is this true when he lives in a small community such as our own. It needs a great deal of the rarest sort of courage to take a firm stand for a principle which most of your neighbors do not recognise or have abandoned at tin call of pleasure or excitement or expediency. St. Paul asked his friends to pray for him that he might have the courage to speak boldly. Fearless speaking w;as then a most dangerous thing. It might, and often did, involve bodily suffering, torture and death. The Christion ~d to be brave enaough to take this into account before he opened his mouth, to think to himself, "I will not fear what man can do unto me." Men eould in those days do so many particularly unpleasant things to those they disagreed with. To-day, here and now, in this and many other towns, the hard tbing is not to think "I will not fear wha man can do unto me,'' but "I will not fear what men and women can say of me." That's the hard thing. "I will not fear the misrepresentation of motives, I will not fear the foolish talk of the chatterers, I will not fear the tneers of the shirkers, I will not fear the bland superiority of hundreds of nominal ehurohpeople to whom Christianity is nothing and less than nothing. 1 will be true to my conscience, to my religion and my church, and I will not

fear." It is not an Cits.y attitude to /take up; it is not a pleasant attiinde for clergy ' layman. It is nnt the line of least resistance, l.ut life is not eniiobled by following the line of least resistance. Unless we Christians recognise a higher law than the law of expediency, a higher rule than the convenience or pleasure of the moment, a nigher standard than the standard of public opinion, life will quickly deteriorate, men's consciences will become weak and dull, and our religion will have all the none and sinew taken out of it. I know what most of U3 feel about it. We don't »vant to shirk our duty, we don't want to be untrue to our best selves, but we would feel lonely without the approval of our own circle, and from such loneliness we all shrink; we naturally long for sympathy. It is quite a true feeling and a right one. No one but an ascetic despises sympathy. No one but a crank or a fanatic wants to be unpopular. But this, like every other feeling, needs to be controlled. To depend on sympathy is not to lay the foundations of a strong and true and loyal life. There is always the danger that tfhen we have to choose between die judgment hall where Christ is, and ihe fireside where Peter is, we shall choose the fireside—i.e., we shall choose sympathy, companionship even at the cost of betrayal, m preference to the call of duty which means loneliness. My friends, it is natural to feel deeply the withdrawal of sympathy, but it is quite necessary sometimes to forego it; it is always necessary to learn to do without it. And it'is those men and women who a a community like our own can

SPEAK OUT BOLDLY, liowbeit without self-assertion, who can stand firm for a principle even at the cost of their popularity, it U they who strengthen their hold upon God, raise the life, around them to a higher level, deepen the faith of others, and who even in times of loneliness and lack of sympathy feel like their Master that they are not alone, because the Father is with them. And if this is true of all Christians, it is even more vitally true of the clergy. "That they may speas boldly as they ought to speak" should be the prayer of all people. That is why lam addressing you on this subject to-night. You have heard it announced that the offertory this evening is for the Country Clergy Fund. Now, although this fund ought really to be called the "Country District Fund," for it does not go to increase the stipends of the clergy, it goes to provide stipends for clergymen to minister in districts which without help could not afford to maintain them, yet I always take this opportunity of speaking for my brethren, many of" whom are in a very difficult position as regards the means of living, who are sometimes humiliated by having to ask personally for what should be theirs by right, and who, however conscientious they may be, are hampered in their duty both in preaching and visiting by the knowledge that their very bread and butter depends largely on their personal popularity. The efficiency of the clergy in this country depends to a far greater extent than at home on the goodwill of the laity, and that fact is in itself a source both of strength and weakness to the Church. The lazy, comfortable clergyman, quite independent of his people, who has got a good thing and means to stick to it, is still to be found in the Old Country. He is much rarer than he was 50 years ago, but he is still to be found. In" NewZealand he is unknown, and that fact makes for strength in our Church. On the other hand, there is a large number of our clergy who are made to feel far too conscious of their dependence on the laity, clergymen who with wives and families to support, and only just able to make both ends meet, can hardly be blamed if they are

AFRAID OF BEIXG UNPOPULAR, afraid to take up a position that would mean loneliness and absence of sympathy and withdrawal of support, afraid to speak boldly a s they ought to speak. Our clergy do not want or expect to be maintained in luxury. They do not mind going without comforts which men of the same education as themselves would look on as ordinary necessities, but a living wage they ought to have and must have. "A living wage'': an elastic expression I know. Have you ever thought what a living wage means for youi clergy? What does a clergyman want with money? Have you ever thought of that which should be a big item in the budget of any efficient clergyman, viz., books? You demand that your clergy should be up-to-date, that they should keep abreast of contemporary thought, that they should preach intelligently, even if all cannot preach eloquently. But you know that it is a ■popular fallacy to think that a clergyman gets up into the pulpit and say 3 just what comes into his head. If he did it would seldom be worth listening to. As a well-known writer has said, "ex-tempore is ex-trumpery" To preach constantly and intelligently a clergyman must be able to supply himself with books, as well as to have time to study them. Books sre to the clergy 'what munitions of war are to gnr sol-

diers. We can't expect to fight efficiently without them. And low is a man in a country district ou a .ireca.ious £2OO a year, without means of his own, to keep himself supplied with books? How can you expect to tut, good sermons under tho-e lOiidiiions?

Again, the clergyman of a parish, however small his income, is always the first to be asked for money by the impecunious and those in need. His is the lirst house of ciill lor all who want assistance. Jn the Old Country poor people ask frankly for charity. Here they want "to borrow a trifle." but the result is the same .for the clergyman's pocket, for be cannot shut bis ears to all appeals for assistance. These are things of which the laity ought to be reminded, for they often fail to realise them, or else remember to forget them. With these there are many calls upon him, worried by sordid cares and anxieties, painf.tlly conscious that, as time goes on, as he becomes older, his efficiency decreases, his sermons get thinner and thinner, his ministrations less acceptable, it must be the hardest tiling in the world for the country clergynn 1 to lare to incur unpopularity, to stand up for his Master, to struggle against the tide of a popular opinion which is sweeping many young lives into dangerous waters. Yet it is of the utmost importance in these days that the clergy should be able to speak fearlessly as well as sympathetically to their people.

A DEMORALISING TENDENCY. I dare say you know what I mean and have guessed my second motive in addressing you in this unusual strain to-night. The city of Auckland has lately plunged into the dissipation (there is no other word for it) of a Queen Carnival. 'Practically the whole body of the clergy and ministers of all denominations, led by our Bishop, protested at the outset against ct.e demoralising feature of that carnival—the lotteries, raffles and art unions, which obviously encourage the gambling spirit in communities where they take place. That protest was almost contemptuously disregarded. The carnival was begun, and it was soon apparent that other and more dangerous things even than lotteries were to be encouraged. Women, and especially young girls, were being encouraged to make themselves cheap. A man could not walk down Queen street without being accosted by some young woman with a request to buy a lottery ticket. Girls who in normal times would resent any liberty from a man. particularly from a man they did not know, not only tolerated, but appeared to encourage such liberties, and would even go into hotel bars and endeavor to sell tickets to the men who were drinking there. And these, mind you, are not as a rule fast young women, but decent, well-brought-up girls who had caught what was called "the carnival spirit," the spirit which prompts them to throw all restraint to the winds, to lay aside natural modesty, to appeal to what is worst and not to what is best in men, to maHe themselves cheap. My friends, the demoralisation of women is the greatest danger with which any community can be threatened, and no cause, however good, is worth the danger. Do you like to think of your daughter's or sister's name being bandied about in the mouths of betting men in public bars, made the subject of coarse jests and rude comparisons, figuring in sweepstakes, and in many other ways held lightly and cheaply ?

Don't mistake me. I don't for one moment mean to impugn the motives of many excellent people who take part in such carnivals. I know some of them in Auckland, and I am sure that their motives are of the best. But this I say, that they

"KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO." t If a carnival meant simply straight voting for one particular "queen," and nothing else, little could be said against it, But the trouble is that once you let loose the carnival spirit you can't regulate it, you can't control it, you can't know where it is going to stop. It gathers momentum as it proceeds. It becomes more and more extravagant, and the harm it does to the community is out of all proportion to the good pur: pose it achieves. At the last meeting of Synod the Bishop and the clergy and the great majority of the laity condemned it. I believe that most of the people of Auckland expected a protest from the clergy, and would have thought less of them if no protest had been made. The Auckland Press, though supporting the carnival, gave fair play to the protestants. But the individual clergyman, who gave his vote in Synod, may find it hard, when he gets back to his parish, to face the unpopularity which may be involved in making a protest there. The smaller the parish, the harder is his lot likely to be. He may have to put up with misrepresentation. He may be accused of meanness and be called a spoil-sport and a wet blanket. We were told, in fact, by a layman ill Synod that we had already "given offence" by our attitude in this matter. I said then, and I repeat now, that if necessary the clergy must always be prepared to give offence. We are not here to bless indiscriminately everything that happens at the time to be popular. And I believe that at a time like this, when so many are in deep distress and anxiety, and so many plunged into grief and mourning, when many hearts are aching and many homes desolate, the frivolity and dissipation of a carnival are not only out of place, but must be a pain and an offence to hundreds of sorrowful people; and when the clergy speak out on this subject to-day, I sav that

THEY ARE SPEAKING BOLDLY, AND AS THEY OUGHT TO SPEAK.

My iriends, I am sure you know that I am not thinking of myself. 1 am thinking of my brethren in country districts whose position is more difficult and whose work is harder than my own. I ask you to pray for them, that in all the difficult issues of life, and in spite of the narrowness of their surroundings they may be given courage and faith to "speak boldly as they ought to speak," to warn as well as to exhort, to rebuke as well 'as to comfort. For thus, and thus ouly, will your clergy be of real value to their communities, true servants of their Master, and true friends of their people. May we not all pray, clergy and people alike, that when the time comes to face lonelines, alienation, unpopularity, it may be persecution for our Master's sake, we may be given power to act like men and not like sheep, to stand with the lonely Christ in the judgment hall of public opinion, and at all times, i:i all circumstances, and on every difficult occasion to "sneak boldly as we ought to speak." [The Rev. A. H. Colvile regrets that he cannot enter into a newspaper controversy with regard to the subject matter of his sermons. He will be pleased to answer any private signed communication.—Ed. News.]