Abergavenny Chronicle

MAYOR'S SUNDAY. 1 CHURCH PARADES at ABERGAVENNY i SERVICES AT HOLY TRINITY AND WESLEYAN CHURCHES. Sunday last was, in accordance with usual custom, observed as Mayor's Sunday, and, as was the case last year, two parades were held. In the morning the Mayor (Alderman Z. Wheat- lev 1 attended divine service at Holy Trinity Church, and in the evening attended his own place of worship, the Wesleyan Church. It had been expected that the band of the 3rd Monmouthshire Battalion would have taken part in the parades, as arrangements had been made for them to come back to Abergavenny for a few days for recruiting purposes. It was a matter of great disappointment, however, when it became known that the order had been cancelled. The Mayor, who had arranged for a concert to be given by the band at the Town Hall on Sunday evening, in aid of the Local War Fund, issued a notice to the public on Saturday in which he announced that the concert would be abandoned, and appended a letter received from Col. P. B. Ford (commanding the 2/3rd Monmouthshire Battalion at Bedford) on the matter. Colonel Ford wrote Since writing letter on other side, I have received orders that my proposal to send the band back could not be sanctioned. The Brigadier gave me verbal authority on the otli instant, and has now sent me implicit instructions, at the instance of the Central Force, that the thing could not be allowed. I am sorry to have caused any trouble or inconvenience, but you will see by the con- tents of the letter on reverse that I was alto- gether surprised, and at the time I got the message the band was on the point of moving. If anything can be done in the near future to get the decision reversed, I will certainly do all I can with that object in view." In spite of the fact that the Territorials, the St. John Ambulance Corps and others were are serving their country, there was an excellent parade in the morning. The Mayor was ac- companied bv the Town Clerk, the Mayor's Chaplain (the Rev. S. H. Bosward), Councillors G. R. Plowman, W. Horsington, W. J. Meale, J. R. Beckwith, P. Telford, S. J. Ruther, W. J. Tong, Alfred Graham, H. A. Palmer, Major W. Williams, and officials of the Corporation, Fire Brigade under Capt. H. C. Powell, Volunteer Training Corps under Mr. F. P. J. Hanbury, Territorial Cadets, postal staff, wounded soldiers (under the command of Capt. J. R. Jacob), members of the N. U. R. The procession formed up at the General Market and marched to Holy Trinity Church by way of High-street, Frogmore- and marched to Holy Trinity Church by way of High-street, Frogmore-street and Baker-street. A Worthy Local Charity. The service was of an appropriate character, and an interesting sermon suitable to the occasion was preached by the Vicar, who took as his text As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth with the stuff." The rev. gentleman referred to the object of the collection, the Victoria Cottage Hospital. They were asked to support one of the most important charities in that town-in fact he might say the most important. He knew how they were all strained at the present time, and how deeply they had to plunge their hands into shallow pockets to keep up various things which were an absolute necessity at the present time in connection with the war. They knew, however, that they must have their hospital. Did they doubt its importance ? If they had no evidence in their own homes, and God had been so good that they had had no need to knock at its doors to ask for admission, let them go down their street and they would not go very far before they found some one who was very grateful for the existence of the Cottage Hospital. If they wanted a guarantee that the money was well spent, let them ask the Mayor, who was connected with it officially..During the 20 years he had served on the committee he had known nothing but the utmost utility for the "benefit of the patient-the maximum care and comfort for the patient at the minimum cost to the subscriber. What more did they want. In the prison at the Hague there were to -be seen instruments of mediaeval torture. There were branding irons, thumb-screws and apparatus which allowed drops of water to fall on the fore- head of a man until he became insane. Every devilry that man's mind could invent seemed to be represented there. In the corner was to be seen a collecting box. After the torturers had done the most demoniacal things this box was put up to collect for the widows and orphans. They needed no box to remind them of the im- portance of this great charity, the Cottage Hospital. The rev. gentleman here read a communica- tion from the Mayor, as follows :—" In view of the serious statement made by Lord Derby, on the authority of the Prime Minister, that if even- young man medically fit and not indispensable to any business of national importance, nor any business connected with the general good of the community, does not come forward voluntarily before November 30th, the Government will take the necessary steps to redeem the pledge made on November 2nd, may I ask that every young man in this congregation at once takes steps to ascertain if he is medically fit, and if so to at once seriously consider what his duty is to his country in this struggle for that liberty we all so much love." Kaiser will be Turned Upside Down. I That day, continued the rev. gentleman, was the anniversary of the death of that great soldier, Lord Roberts, who was one of the illustrious body of men who made up the little company of freemen of that town. Need he remind them that Lord Roberts went up and down the country and urged the people to get ready for what must come ? He was laughed at. People said that he was suffering from senile decay and that the verbosity of old age was upon him. But God was speaking to his people through that man's voice. What better could we do than to make a fresh effort to carry out his dying wish, which was that every fit man should do his duty to his King and country ? He might also say something to them about the man whose name must always rank with Judas. The cries of drowning and dying children, the cries of outraged women, the miseries of millions of people, a Europe flooded with blood, the bitter cry—if she uttered it—of Edith Cavell, the cries of the men who were shot at as they rowed away from their sinking ship the other day-all these went up to God. There was a God, an im- mutable, unchanging God. What did He say of such things ? David voiced it for Him when he said As for the ways of the ungodly, he turneth him uoside down." We mieht leave it to God. We did not need to say anything, or make any accusation, but leave him with God. God would turn him upside down. But we must go further. Let us remember that, in the words of the poet, There's so much good in the worst of ns and so much bad in the best of us that it ill becomes any of us to say anything about the rest of us." Let us leave it to God to do what was best, and carry on our work. We had to sustain things in this country. We had to do our best to recruit every man who was fit and could be spared to enter into this great struggle. Proceeding to deal with his text, the rev. gentleman related how the Amalekites, in pursuing their enemy, flung down their accoutre- j ments and all that could be spared, in order to lighten themselves, and the question arose as 1 to who was tolook after them. There were about a couple of hundred men who were not medically fit, and they were the tarriers. He was not unaware that he was talking to tarriers that morning, and men who for some cause or other could not indulge their earnest desire to go to the front. It was no small matter to tarry. They had the tremendous responsibility of carrying on things in this country. Whereever there was privilege there was responsibility. After the fight the question arose among the Amalekites as to whom the spoil belonged. Those who had fought said it should belong to them but David said No." Those who tarried should be equal sharers with those who had done the more con- spicuous active duty. What We Have Learned. Perhaps we had learned something from this war. To begin with, we had learned that it was possible for even Englishmen to be fools. An English officer, who was a prisoner of war in Germany, writing home said that the German officer who was his custodian and was very friendly and discussed various matters with him, said" Two things are quite certain. One is that you Englishmen are always fools, and the other is that we Germans will never be gentlemen." Nothing truer had ever been said. We had been fools. We had allowed the rivets and bolts which held the ship together to become rusty. Instead of listening to Lord Roberts and others we had been fools. We had learned the value of a great and good King. They had read how, the other day, the King while lying on a bed of pain, pinned the V.C. on the breast of a soldier. He thought, too, that we had learned that there was a splendid manhood in our midst. What -did the French people say about our soldiers ? They said that the men admired them, the women respected them, and the little children loved them. We had a grand manhood and we were developing it, thank God. We had learned that there was something better than mere party politics. It was time we did learn. What we really needed was the ideal the poet had put before us when he said Then none were for the party, Then all were for the State Then the rich man helped the poor man And the poor man loved the great. That was the ideal. Something better than party politics, and if we had learned nothing else we had learned that. The text taught us that the rewards were not only for those doing conspicuous work, but that they were for every- I body who did his duty as be should do. We I could not all be General Gordons, and all the women could not be Florence Nightingales or resign their lives as Edith Cavell had done, but we could all do our best and it was a tremondous consolation that As his part is that goeth to J the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth with I the stuff." I AT THE WESLEYAN CHURCH. I There was only a small parade to the Wesleyan Church in the evening. Accompanying the Mayor were Councillors S. J. Ruther, G. R. Plowman, H. A. Palmer, W. J. Meale, J. R. Beckwith, W. J. Tong, J. R. Jacob, W. Horsing- ton, P. Telford, together with the officials, Fire Brigade, and a few members of the Volunteer Training Corps. A special form of service was arranged for the occasion, and a pleasing feature was the singing of the choir, who, under the conductorship of Mr A. J. Willcox, rendered the anthem I will extol Thee, 0 God, my King (Arthur Linwood). The collections were in aid of the Victoria Cottage Hospital. I The Testing of Christianity. I The Rev. S. H. Bosward preached a very interesting sermon from the text That they all may be one that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me." Never since the days of Nero and the early Christian perse- cution, said the preacher, had the Church been so severely tested as it had been during the last 18 months. We were frequently saying that the war had tested our English life and our English manhood, but above all the war had tested our Christianity to see what it was worth. It had revealed its weaknesses and failures in a way chat nothing else had brought home to us. d brought home to us. Everybody was beginning to say that the responsibility for this war did not rest upon one I man, nor upon one nation, but to a certain extent the responsibility rested upon the Christian Church. If the Cbristian Church had been united as it should have been, the Christians of the world could have prevented this war. Now that the war nad broken upon us, the Church, by being so divided, was unable to give any general lead even in our own Christian land. The head of the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope, had been very severely criticised because in the presence of all the evil and all the horrors of this present war, he had been silent; but the Pope of Rome was not the only Christian leader who had no real lead to give to his people. The leaders of the Protestant Churches were in just as great trouble as he had been. We all of us saw now that the Church had been far too busy with its internal quarrels. It had been too anxious about wealth, about ecclesiastical prestige, about denominational pride, that when the hour of its supreme testing came those out- [Reproduced by courtesy of the South Wales Daily News."] [Photo by R. H. Stevens, 18, Monk Street.] Recruiting Rally at Abergavenny. The first batch of recruits under Lord Derby's Scheme: All joining the colours at once and not waiting for their groups. Taken outside the Town Hall. In the I centre are the Mavor (Alderman Z. Wheatlev, T-P.) and Captain Atherley Jones, the district recruiting officer. 1 aide the Church who had looked to it for comfort and guidance had, to a certain extent, looked in vain. If we looked round upon the Christian Churches as they existed in the world to-day, how very strange those words of Christ sounded in our ears. Christ spoke of the Church as being one great flock of which He was the Shepherd. St. Paul's favourite figure was that the Church was the body and Christ the head. St. John's idea was more beautiful still, and the figure he used was that the Church was the bride and Christ the bridegroom. It was his special care and pride. These New Testament ideas formed a very painful contrast with the Church to-day, and indeed as it had always been. Had we fallen so far from the standard set up that we had gone back ? No, we could hardly think that. Even in the New Testament the time of the Church was seriously concerned with in- ternal quarrels of unworthy members who dragged it down into the mire. The fact was that the Christian Church had never come up to this great standard, because we saw that the New Testament views of the Church were ideal. And it was the very nature of an ideal that at the present time it was impracticable. Much of the teaching of Jesus Christ was misunder- stood because it was not concen%d with giving laws for human life so mucn as giving great ideals to live up to. Some of the teachings of Christ were considered impracticable and im- possible to-day. For instance. He said, Resist not him that is evil." We were told we had no right to be at war and no right to enlist. We must take these sayings in conjunction with others. Christ also said, Give to him that asketh and to him that would borrow turn not away." Could we live in England in the Loth century on such lines ? It would be setting a premium on beggary. Remember, Jesus Christ also said If a man take one garment give him even the other garment also." They must remember that Christ was speaking to people who habitually only wore two garments, and they could not expect the saying to be taken literally. Christ was giving us great ideals. He described the world as it should be. The teach- ing of Jesus Christ was not for one age, but was to last to the end of the ages. It was to be ever- lasting. One Great United Church. In the days of this ideal which Christ pictured, the Church would be simply one great united Church. How was it that it had become so seriously divided ? There were several different reasons which might be put forward. One very great reason was temperament. East is East. and West is West, and never the twain shall meet," said the poet, but the Christian Church had united East and West. It hid brought together men of different types atd minds. There had been schools of thought in the Church, and these had drifted apart, almost imperceptibly, and tnrough all the movements which had taken place there had been a lack of the spirit of Christ. For "hat reason Church history was often sad and tragic reading. The history of our own Christian Church in this country was one long tale of internal division. When William the Conqueror came to England he found the Christian Church already established with Saxon priests and Saxon bishops, and one of the first things he did was to sweep all these bishops out of the way and appoint new ones, mostly direct from Rome. Macaulay said, in 1 his History of England," that William the Conqueror vilely deposed these men and ap. pointed Colitinental't bishops." That was the beginning of the great trouble which had always been in our land ever since. As Nonconformists, they must admit that the history of the Reforma- tion in this country simply would not bear looking into. The result of the Reformation in Germany was that the Reformers split oft from the one Church of Rome and formed national churches. Thus many churches were State- governed and State-directed, and that had been a great source of trouble. The Church in different countries was governed in different ways. Those who had governed the Church had often been politicians or millionaries. priest-ridden Church was bad enough, but a Church governed by politicians was worse still, and a Church run by business men and million- aires was the most pitiful sight under heaven. That, unfortunately, had been the fate of only too many churches in our country. Noncon- formity, in our own country, was caused not by theological quarrels or divisions within the Church so much as by the Royalist Government of the time of Charles II- By the Act of Uni- formity all clergymen of the Church of England had to swear an oath saying that resistance to the Crown was sinful. Professor Meiklejohn said that as a result 2,000 ministers, the best and most learned, resigned their livings and went out to start a world mission. Following that was the Conventical Act and the Five Mile Act. Thus Nonconformity was caused, and the I independent churches had existed ever since. j Then, again, in the time of George II. a great I industrial revolt spread all over the country. Coal and iron began to be worked in a way un- known before, and this caused a great shifting of the population from the villages to the towns and cities. What was the Church doing at this time to cope with the new situation ? The Church was in a state of torpor. Then it was that Wesley, in conjunction with other clergy- men, started to move about the country, preach- ing the Gospel with a new-found fervour which was regarded as remarkable in his day Every- where they formed Methodist societies—a sort of guild. Wesley had no intention, in the beginning, of founding a new Church, and he urged his followers to remain within the Church of England. But it seemed impossible so great was the flood tide of religious feeling that the old rules of the Church of England, iron-bound as they were, were not able to respond to it. The stream overflowed its banks, and the Church of England had never been the same since, but the overflow had remained in the Methodist churches of this and other lands. The story of Christianity in our own land was one long tale of division and quarrelling. I Christianity's Unnecessary Expenditure. I Think of the unnecessary expenditure caused in keeping different chapels going, in supplying the pulpits with ministers and preachers. Think of the money wasted to build unnecessary chapels, which might have been spent to much better purpose. This was only the story of Christianity in our own little island, and only too sadly it was typical of the Christianity in other lands. Now we saw the tragedy of it all. They had failed at every moment in the presence of social problems, the drink. traffic and other things. The Church had been weak because they all sought to fight the evil in separate churches instead of uniting and standing, on one platform to oppose the common enemy of Christ and religion. Think of the missionary extension possible if only the Church had been united in I its efforts. Now we saw a great world war, and I the Church was more or less helpless. It made I us ask the question Is any kind of reunion possible ?" The problem seemed almost hope- less, the differences were so great between the Christian Churches. They seemed so great as to almost amount to different religions, and yet we all, Wesleyans, Anglicans, Romans, repeated the same creed, I believe in the Holy Catholic ¡' Church." And when we repeated that creed we al! must ask ourselves If there is such a Church, where is it ? Of course, the Roman ¡ Catholic gave the answer without any qualifica- tion whatever-" There is only one Church, and ] that is the Roman Catholic Church. The Pope ] of Rome is Christ's Vicar, God's representative j upon earth. All who are under his authority i are in the Church, and those who are not under his authority are not in the Christian Church." I That was their point of view. Some Anglicans would say There are three branches, the Eastern, the Roman Church and the Anglican Church." What should they say of the Church ? For whom was Christ praying that they might all be one ? Those that believe in me "—to believe, not to subscribe to some particular form of belief. To believe in Christ was to be entirely ruled by Christ, and so they would say that the Catholic Church was the Church of all the churches. Its members were within every branch of the Christian Church. j Why could not there be more co-operation among all those who called themselves Christian;: ? There were many suggestions as to how this co-operation could be brought about. j One suggestion from America was that the Anglicans should be trustees for Congregational Church property, and that the Methodists should have shares in the Roman Catholic CI urch. That was just like America but many others given seriously were almost as foolish. It was no use hiding their differences and pretending j they did not exist. He hoped they would not say We will forget the past and give up the distinctive features for which our fathers have 1 I suffered and worked." Reunion could only come by willingness to understand one another and readiness to co-operate with one another. When I Christ was incarnate once more in the members of His Church, the world would believe in Christ. If the Church hah the spirit of Christ it would speak with certainty and power to a troubled world. The world would believe in Christ if they saw His spirit in the Church. He made a pica that night for the catnolic spirit, that they might be quick to appreciate the good work and the good qualities oc other churches, that they might show a greater willingness to learn, recognising that no one Church had the monopoly of the Truth, and that they might have a broader and loftier outlook in all their thought and work and prayer, ever remembering Christ's dream of a united Holy Catholic Church throughout all the world. That Church would stand when their Methodist Churches were forgotten and when all the difterent churches which were to be the channels of the grace of God would all be lost sight of in the flood-tide of the river of God. Then +he world would believe and" at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and we should all be one with Him. And so should all our unhappy divisions be healed. ..&