CHURCH AND SPORT.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 August 1922, Page 4

CHURCH AND SPORT.

RELIGION AND RECREATION. A MESSAGE TO YOUNG MEN. There was a large congregation at the Whiteley Memorial Church last night, when the Rev. W. J. Elliott delivered a sermon on “The Christian Athlete.” The discourse was based on Hebrews, XII., 1-2: “Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which, doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.”

'The preacher said: “There should be no divorce or antagonism 'between religion and recreation, because they are intended by a beneficent Creator to be mutual and friendly allies in the great game of life. The body and the soul act and react upon each other, and recreation is a vital necessity to both. There is no harm, but much good, in the various games young people indulge in in our Dominion, which foster kindly fellowship and exercise one’s physical and mental faculties. They furnish the 'breathing-spaces so essential to a strenuous and effective life. But many frown upon the benefits. It is the spirit of sport that makes young men always eager to come out on top, and induces them to give of their best with a view to getting there. From Grecian times, and even earlier, the athlete has been the hero of the multitude, and although the Grecian regard for athletics in its purity has been somewhat corroded *by the gangrene of gambling and other defects, there yet remains to us the glory of the sporting spirit and all that it connotes. PLEASURE-LOVING JUSTIFIED. “I have not much sympathy with the prevailing outcry against the pleasureloving disposition of the age we live in. It is no worse in this respect than its predecessors; indeed, it is vastly better, and its search for pleasure is, to a large extent, the other side of its strenuousness. It is to be deplored the extent to which the gangrene of gambling is eating into our best sports, and the disrupting microbe should be cut out. It is a historic vice and reached enormous proportions in ancient Rome, but the romance and zest of life can be renewed without it. It has been sternly reprobated down the centuries as an enemy, and we should resist in every way its insidious fascinations. Wherever it has sway the true spirit of sport wanes, and the very finest manhood is made a doubtful quantity. It is well to emulate the Grecian love of athletics, but let us not forget that the Greeks awarded the palm not only to the boxer and the athlete, but also to the historian and the poet. We in danger of overlooking the scholar, and of considering only the ‘sport,’ and of putting ‘pastime’ above the place of legitimate recreation. Solomon said: ‘To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven/ and a moderation in the appetite for sport is as necessary as a moderation in the appetite for anything else. “We are always beset by the twofold danger of giving amusement too large a space in the programme of life, and yielding to the intrusion of evil associations. The remedy lies not in banning recreation, but in rescuing it from all mischievous parasites. And here I think it is the duty of the church to stand by sport, and to help to keep it clean and healthy. We should never allow the lust of pleasure to lure us outside the domain where a healthy form of recreation and an honestly accepted religion should work hand in hand. The true ethics of sport, as of religion, are unselfishness, brotherlykindness and good cheer. And suffer me to say to you as a cricketer for 28 years, and a football referee for several seasons, you can have the sanest and sweetest sport without indulging in strong drink. Most of our manly sports tend to develop perseverance, courage, decision and endurance, and they call for the exercise of self-control, unselfishness, self-denial and temperance. The greatest football triumphs have been won, and the greatest records in cycling and running made under of rigid discipline and abstinence. Intemperance is fatal to success in any feat of human life. A SUGGESTED UNION. “And I submit to young men that the time has come when there should be a sacred union between the athlete and the "Christian. An athlete should be a Christian because he has a healthy body, and is all the more likely to shed abroad a hopeful influence. ,He will be optimistic, and few things are more required to make the little corner of the field we call our world brighter and better. The Christian athlete will possess the qualities by which he will be prevented from running cronk. Every race will be run, and. every match played upon their merits, which is not always so now. I appeal to Christian men and women to regard athletes and their recreations with a tender eye, and to exert every wholesome influence to purify manly sport from every sort of evil connection. Let us run with firmness and without fever.”

The anthems by the choir and the general hymns were heartily sung, Mr. F. P. Fredric being the soloist. A male quartette was also rendered, and the whole service was a notable one.