Thoughts on a Sermon To the Editor of the "Nonmi-Cuma Dany News"
Su~The sermon preached in the Holy Trinity Cathedral on Sunday, February 3 and reproduced in your journal of February 11 serves to emphasize, if emphasis were neces sary, the wide and growing gap between the Church and the problems, questions and perplexities of everyday life.
Few indeed are. there in these times who do not feel and exper ence, in some form or other, the difficulties consequent on the general economic depression. These diflculties are many and varied, and their influence on the lives of most of us is an ever-present anxiety. all sides is the ery that conditions were never as bad as now. There has been and is a general cutting of expenses of every description; and to many of Us the last two or three years have proved especially illu minating In demonstrating not what We need in order to live, but what we can. do without and' stilt live. Very many. firms, as well as very many individuals, are struggling and stilving Ju hope~a hope of hotier hope that is the bedrock of the existence of those who have nothing else on which to lean. The problems with us and ahead of us are as dificult and as complex as they are discouraging. There is no sporont lessening of the cost of the prime necessities of life, and nearly every section of humanity is strlv~ ing, as it never strived before, get the maximum it can from every other section of humanity. Although, with most people, there has been a marked falling-off in income, there has been little if any falling-off in what has to be pald for necessary food, or for necessary clothing. of for Yenting a place wherein 0 live, or for the means to keep warm. Li ousts Just as much og it ever did to be born or 10 be. baptized, to be wedded or to be buried, and there is no indication of any reduction the cost of even these essential ser~ vices to mankind.
But to return to the sermon of February 3. The subject was the annual appeal of the Cathedral for funds for the ensuing year, antt in connection therewith a member ths 'CHurch had submitted the fol-Jowing question—
1. Mow ore our offerings in Church Bo they il go in coal, light and How fae are they used the a are they uted to support amon goes to, Missions and the spread of me Kingdom?
hat cane considered. portion of one's income thrive to the How many people sive system cally a definite amount o¢ their means?
"4. Mow many would tind, if they' worked It out that more Was spent fmulsement than is iven to God?
How far must. We obey the inunction riven {0 the yeh young Fuler, sell all five. 10 the poor?
oe How fur te a Christan Justified spentiea' money on" himself and "7. What should be our attitude toward waving?
Fete cistian—enthled to Why is it wrong to gamble? the member of the Church who subynitted those questions wrote. feel that. this. matter of the Christian altitude to" material things vitally important, and. 1 wonder Whether it would not be possible for Yourself and the "other clergy. live definite teaching on the subjee, {iv T do not remember it having been dealt with since I came," to. which the. preacher made the following "rhe question in regard Lo property sight, perronalexpenaiture, saving, tpectadon and. gambling are ques-tons sors dactssion group. rather Ina the jude bot" the. tst four questions to. direct "concern "our Subject this morning' that. propose fo'deat brierly with: them Here, in @ nutshell, we have what appears to be the whole present-day altitude of the Church towards ma~ terial problems of life—"They are not questions for the pulpit" Sul cient for the pulpit, apparently, fare the very material matters to do with the finances of the Church; but unworthy of such treatment' are much broader, more vital matters to do 80 largely' with every-day prob-ems of life in Shanghai. Surely the Church has not now whetly adopted 4 policy of "Sauve aut peut"?
If the five questions "put above, with which the preacher failed deal, are not questions suitable for the pulpit, are we to assume that the Church, as a body, is not concerned with the matters referred to? 'Where else, but in the Pulpit, can the Church make known its views and intentions regarding those prob-Jems of the day to which, it seems to me, the Church should' pay more than passing attention? "Take, for {nstance, the question of gambling and speculation, "What intelligent Person in Shanghai does not know oralities, dogmatic theories having little of no bearing on Life (the hard," nol-to-be-lost-sight-of Life that so many are living to-day), and impractical ecclesiastical exhortations and doctrines which are infinitely more pleasing to the car than effective as moral palliatives in our troublous times? As the year which has just left us had, so will the year which is just with us have, its A of pangs, its fil of trials, fis li of tribulations, its All of sutforings and its fill" of disappointments; it will try us and grind us as the old year did, and make us, His to be hoped, the better for it all. But whatever it may bring, we all nead a good strong heart with which to face It, and a firm jaw to Jshow the world. In the struggle that is with us and ahead of us, we all need moral help, understanding, guidance, encouragement and ap-Dreciation from any source that can be oF could be of help; and we all of us need assistance from every body or organization which might be of use in combatting the activities which, singly and accumulative~ ly, have so detrimental an effect on the local life of Shanghai.
T submit that to this end we are entitled to look to the Church, as much as to any other body, to "do is bik" T may be wrong, but it) does seem to me that the Church has become so closely wrapped up in itself as partly to have forfeited its time-honoured and important position in the fabric of human activities, and that the words Immort. alized'by the Bard, "The shepherd seeks the sheep and not the sheep the shepherd." are no longer ap~ plicable' in the Shanghai of 1935, with more perplexities and tribuna tions and problems. moral and terial, than it has had since It be-
Shanghai, Feb. 12.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.