SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 November 1916, Page 6

SUNDAY READING.

- <f|l u - A CALL FOR ENTHUSIASM, . BELIEF IN CHRISTIANITY/' \

BISHOP AVERILL'S APPEAL.

There was a very large congregation at St. Mary's Church on Sunday evening when the Right Rev., the Bishop of Auckland (Dr. A. W. Avcrill) conducted the service.

The Bishop took his text from Epliesians, sth chapter, 16th verse: "Redeeming the time." The way to counteract the lower enthusiasms is to cultivate higher ones, the Bishop commenced. Life is not a repression of enthusism, but its elevation. There is an element in human nature which craves excitement, enthusiasm, and outward expression thereof. This instinct is often degraded because life has no inspiring ideals, and it becomes drab and prosaic, and we resort to lower enthusiasms to give zest to life. Our standard of life is too apt to become colored by the standard of the world in which we live, and instead of our giving a truer and a higher coloring to the world around us by our enthusiasm, we. are inclined to drift into the backwash, unless a friendly fresh comes along and guides us on .'our v/ay. t ~

NEED FOR ENTHUSIASM '

Just because the days are evil we have a great opportunity to do sometiling, Dr. Avcrill proceeded. It is not for us to be lethargic; it is our opportunity to be up and doing. The days of St. Paul were evil, but it was enthusiasm which carried the Gospel message, in Apostolic days, throughout the Roman Empire and far beyond the narrow limits of Palestine. It was enthusiasm which made religion a power and earned a splendid testimony for the Apostles. Jt was the enthusiasm of the persecuted which lay behind St. Paul's conversion and which brought the Roman Empire and its Emperor at the feet of .Jesus. It was enthusiasm to-day which caused movements to succeed, and it was the. want of enthusiasm that signed the death warrants of half-heart-ed movements and organisations. On the tcmb stone of a bishop that lived many years ago were the words: "Ho was a represser of enthusiasms." Dr. Averill expressed the hope that such an epitaph would not be earned by/ any other bishops. Why, he asked, should we allow all the wonderful potential enthusiasm wrapped up in human nature to remain undeveloped or to run to seed by expending itself upon false excitement, and even degrading excitement?

CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. The bishop referred to Sir Oliver Lodge's book, "The War and After," and mentioned that the writer, speaking of Germany's rejection of Christianity, said: "It is by no means the first time that Christianity has had to struggle for existence, and we. the Allies, are now the champions of Christendom—an honor which we can hardly be said to have done enough to deserve. Nevertheless, for better or for worse, that is our func tion at the present time, and whether we are worthy of the position remains to be proved." It is to me, added Dr. Averill, largely a question of facts—of what is true. If this life be all, then .a religion of power might serve. And if this life be not all, if we have continued existence, and if Christianity is really a Divine revelation, then it is no use hedging, half-believing and half not believing, and trying to act between, so to speak. Strength lies in whole beliefs after having taken the trouble to ascertain the truth. There cannot be much enthusiasm for anything in which we only half believe, lesmncd the bishop, unless it be the kind of enthusiasm which Saul, the persecutor exhibited, that was caused by his efforts to drown the pricking of conscience. We know that Christianity has not failed in Germany or elsewhere, but that Germany has failed Christianity. Military Prussia realised that Christianity was hopelessly opposed to its ideals of irresponsible power, its worship of State, its treachery, the spoliation of the weak by the strong, and the wanton destruction of human life.

GERMANY DECEIVED. It is quite wrong to speak of Kaiserism as Napoleonic, and to see in the present war a reflection of the struggles of Napoleon for supremacy. It is true JS T apolcon knew nothing of the fiendish devices of war that were common to-day, and it is questionable whether he would have used them if he did. But Napoleon was a man of nobler idealsi than the Prussian war lords. He did much good to France, and meant to do more good to the world as soon as he had become conqueror. Germany is making a deliberate attempt to crush out Christ. A wonderful and horrible thing has been committed in the land. The professors teach falsely, and the German people are deceived. They believe they arc fighting for the preservation of their country against jealous enemies who seek to crush its expanding life and ruin the Fatherland. A German writein the book. "J'Accuse," which clearly reveals the duplicity of German and Austrian diplomacy before the war, says: "The confidence of the German nation has been shamefully abused by its leaders and rulers. Round its eyes, once so clear-sighted, the dark band of ignorance has been tied. . Out of peac2 loving citizens have- been made fighters filled with hate and vengeance. Out of representatives of high culture and intelligence blind and narrow devotees have been formed. They have ruined and blinded the German nation, and have j hounded it to a war which it had never * foreseen, neyor intended, never wished. Te make it free, they have brought it into slavery. Hundreds of thousands can be guarded from death—the German nation from ruin—now, but now only, if truth can make its way into the heart of the German people. For truth is !> call to halt, while lies are a step on the wav to ruin." , t

"WHAT ABOUT OURSELVES?"

"What about ourselves?" asked the bishop. We haven't got much to boast about in the way of religion, and if .vo 'with others are entrusted with the sacked duty of championing Christianity we need a big revival, a searching of the heart ourselves, for believe me, rightly or wrongly, our claim to be a Christian nation has received more than one rud*shock. Perhaps the 'darkest stain on our honor in recent years has been on' inaction in regard to atrocities perpetrated on Armenians for years past. For [ political reasons we choose to bolster up Turkey. Germany was' anxious to obtain our neutrality at the beginning of the war, but in spite of her failure to do so, she decided to ignore our protestations in Bupport of Belgian neutrality. She thought we should not act up to" our duty. She thought our aims would be selfish and that as we wore fiot endangered we should hold aloof.

>*■ '' -•* : liiiS As Sir Oliver Lodge says: "AH humanity blesses the heroic struggle for freedou of the Belgian nation, for without their aid, the face of Europe would have been changed past redemption, and the earth might have been subject to a brutal and intolerable dominance. By our action in throwing in our lot with Belgium and France against a nation which threw over the Christian religion, and reverted to Pagan ideals and morals, we have regained the respect of the world, though at a mighty cost. It is for us to see that we do not lose it again. It is an asset worth 4iaving."

PERTINENT QUESTIONS.' .. There can be no question then, said Dr. Averill, that we are fighting in defence of Christ and his ideals. We an engaged in a religious crusade. But have we the right spirit for such a lii<;li endeavor? Are we revealing to friends or foes that as a nation we really care anything f.baut the religion which professedly we are upholding? Do cut politicians openly acknowledge the real issue that is at stake? Do they -jare for it? Are we not in danger of forgetting it ourselves? Are we enthusiastic acouf the tremendous question, the future and power of the Christian religion? Are we drifting into the consideration of self-intoi est and of the probable <r-iTo< t of the wf.r upon trade? Are we thinking in tic terms of Christ? Have we the world's welfare in mind? Are i\e l'fdeem'ng the time and analysing our beliefs? Are we quite sure we know what we believe oura«'"--° *t~ ...

quite sure „.m«. we mean by Christian ideals and what we are fighting for? Are we anxious to uphold those ideals in our own country? There can be little enthusiasm for the continuance or porir.anence of the Christian religion, added the bishop, unless we know what we believe, and 'accept that belief as God's revelation. It seems that sometime.* people are much more interested in what they don't believe than in what they do. They are more anxious to protest than to affirm. That so many strange forms and caricatures of religion exist is largely to be accounted for by the fact that there is*a tendency to water down the Christian revelation until in the popular mind very little is left. And so sects and coteries have arisen., t.' 1 emphasise the neglected or belittled aspects of truth. These aspects have been published as a new revelation.

BELIEF IN GOD. Vatce for example, said the preacher, the being of God Himself. Are we quitu certain what we believe about God? So certain, indeed, that we are enthusiastic that others should know, and that we are prepared to defend the truth against much unconscious blasphemy and caricature? Are we quite certain that we can only know God's nature by revelation and that all else is guesswork and therefore unreliable? Are we quite certain that we can only know God in Jesus, and that therefore the world needs to know Jesus above all things, that it may know the Father? Are we quite certain we don't think of God as a National Diety, that our God is not an invention of our brain, a reflection of our wishes, and a God in our own image? Are we quite certain that we understand why God does not stop the w*» and why such atrocities are perpetrated" Do we understand why God cannot override free-will without destroying H>: moral government of the world? Are we quite sure we don't accuse God unjustly and think of Him as indifferent to the world's miseries? Have we tried to grasp the meaning of the words, "God so loved the world that Ho gave His only begotten Son?" Have we tried to think that because God is Love, God ! s Sacrifice, because love means sacrifice? Have we parents tried to think of God's sacrifice in giving his Son in the light of our own sacrifices? Have we remembered when we gazed upon the Cross o' Christ that God was in Christ, and that our Father's Heart was crucified? We phall never be enthusiastic until we have f r nnd the suffering Heart of the All Father.

If we seized this opportunity of laying a firm hold on the All Fatherhood of God, we should indeed redeem the time and do our bit to help towards a right understanding and judgment of the gieat world problems which await solution after the war. Sometimes when one reads what men have to say abouv the war and after, one wonders whether we as a nation, have not also renounced Christ. LIFE AFTER DEATH.

There is just one other thought. 7'h.it> are so many mediaeval and Protestant perversions of God's nature current that one hardly wonders that men lose their faith. If people have ideas, whether mediaeval or Protestant, about a God, who is waiting to torment His creatures in a material hell, then the sooner they lese their so-calleil faith the better. It seems a strange thing that people should wilfully pervert .the teaching of the Church on thisN point. The Church of England hasi taught a hell-fire doctrine. The hell referred to in the Creed was Hades. All sorts of crude ideas had been drawn from Eastern imagery, but the chief, that of purification, was ignored. It is absolutely false to say that the Church of England ha-t not taught the blessed truth of progress after the physical death until the present war. and it is equally false to say that the Church of England teaches a material resurrection of physical atoms oi the human body. The statement is absurd. The human bodies are always in a state of change. Not an atom existed in them ten years ago. But we our selves are the same when we cross thi; flcod. I mention this point because there is such a danger of insulting the great Father God who will have all men to b( saved, and who will certainly save all who do not wilfully harden their hearts against His love. Wo'cannot shv:t obr eyes to the fact that inbn may make their' own hell, that is. a separation from the presence of God, but we uttoiI'- repudiate the libel that God has made men to be eternally damned.

THE GENEROUS GOSPEL OP HOPE. At tliia war time we think of those in Paradise. We thank God for them. Wc lay before the All Father our wishes and aspirations for them, and we rejoioo to kuoxv that they are with Christ and are growing unto His Likeness. What a terrible gospel it would bo to veil bereaved parents that they oo.iM speak to everybody else about- their dear out except to God! What a terrible God we should have to uphold! But, 110. We believe in the All Father, and wo do v.ot, hesitate to commit unto llif. Fatherly hands the souls of thoso who have crossed the flood. We do not hesitate to do as Jesus did in Jewish services, what all early Christians did in tally litiii'jfies —pray to God ftv: oi:r loved ones in Paradise And no mediaeval or Protestant superstititions or negations will deprive us of the right to exercise the natural instinct which God has | united in the human breast. \uu will help yourselves and help the worM 10-day by' believing in the glorious gospel of liope It is for us to contend earnestly for the faith, to uphold the honor of our All Father God, and so redeem tlie time because the days are evil.