RELIGION & LIFE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 June 1941, Page 6

RELIGION & LIFE

COMPARISON WITH ANCIENT TIMES. “Today,” said the Rev. H. S. Kings, in his sermon at the Masterton Methodist Church on Sunday night, "people have mere leisure than! ever before." Never in history of labour, he continued. had there been so much free time. There was leisure such as our forefathers nevei' dreamed of and yet religion was so often crowded out and even the little time given io it was grudged in so many cases. People seemed content to give so much time to other pursuits, good in themselves, and to pleasure, so that Sunday worship was' often attended after a hectic Saturday evening. Mr Kings took for his theme a verse from Isaiah, in, which there was a striking parallel with modern times. The prophet, talking of the vanity of idols and idol-makers, said they used for their own purposes the tree they had felled, and from the ashes they made an idol as their god. This, said Mr Kings, seemed to be the attitude of many in the present day when they devoted all the best hours to their own pursuits and the remnants, the "fag ends or spare parts” as it were, to God. If instead, they were to give religion a reasonable place in their lives, on a par with their other interests, the churches would be freed from present difficulties. They would not be driven to methods which earned the contempt of outsiders. So many people seemed to find that religion clashed with these other interests and in consequence it was crowded out of their lives altogether. Actually men should be as practical in their religion as in affairs in the city and make it a wholehearted business. Then their life would become a real fellowship with God as with man.