HENRY GEORGE IN THE PULPIT.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2027, 1 April 1890, Page 4

HENRY GEORGE IN THE PULPIT.

Henry George occupied the pulpit at the Metropolitan Congregational Church, Fitt-street, Sydney,on a recent Sunday evening. The Rev D, Jackson officiated in the early part of the evening, and at the conclusion of his portion of the ceremony, made way for Mr George, preacher, who took for his text “ Thy kingdom come.” Mr George commenced his discourse by reminding his hearers of the marvellous growth of this community within a period of hardly a century. The wonderful growth of modern civilisation, and its great difference to the ancient, brought them to the great fact of Christianity. He pointed out that it was the entrance of a new religion into the world, with its development, A creed which sprang from an obscure people, and was preached by fishermen and tentmakers making its way against persecution, tyranny, ridicule, and against the opposition and derision of the learned, eventually conquered the world. What was its strength ? The fact that because it preached not merely a religion of the future, but also a religion of the present; because its promises was not merely of a kingdom in another world, but of God’s kingdom of righteousness on earth. For nearly nineteen centuries Christianpeoplehad been praying “ Thy kingdom come. Thy will de done on earth as it is done in heaven. ” Had it come P Had the promise of Christianity been fulfilled ? Looking over the civilised world and the great cities, there could be but one answer—No ! In that kingdom on earth there would be no paupers, no alms-houses, no great massses of men doomed to hard and hopeless toil, no women working their lives out at unwomanly work, no little children doomed to toil when they should he at play—’they would not be crowded out of God’s world as though it were no place for them, If the social condition which existed upon the earth to-day existed by the will of God, then they could no longer think ®f Him as just and beneficent.