BAPTIST MISSION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2551, 12 July 1909, Page 3

BAPTIST MISSION.

YESTERDAY’S SERVICES

The services in connection with tho Baptist Mission were continued yesterday. In the morning there was a large congregation at the tabernacle, where a church parade of the Orangemen took place, and in the afternoon the ground floor of liis Majesty’s Theatre was crowded with men, to whom tho Rev. R. S. Gray delivered a most earnest arid instructive address on the subject of “Men’s Morals.” The talk was a very straight one. and was most attentively listened to by the audience, who were exhorted te lead, above all tilings, a pure life. . The theatre was crowded m every part last night at the evening,service, .prior to the commencement the large choir and orchestra, under Mr. 11. J. Brownlee, rendered a number of items, and during the service a male quartette contributed the hymn “For you I am praying,” and Mrs. Morgan, of Dunedin, sang tho solo, “He was Despised (Handel). The Rev. R. S. Gray preached a most eloquent sermon from the text, Mark 16, verses 15-16, “He said unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but lie tliat believeth not shall be damned.” In his sermon, the Rev. Mr. Gray said that he often wished he could preach from this text to men and women who had ndver heard the Gospel or who had no pro-conceived bias either for or against the Bible. Ho Who said “Go forth” was a carpenter not surrounded by books and having no advantages of any learning, but lived in the circle of the most nar-row-minded and bigoted men that had ever existed. He was unknown, then, outside his o-.vn circle, and, later on, was put to death on a gibbet as a common malefactor, when none of those who had professed to be his followers were true to him, but all forsook him. Those who were told to “Go forth” were simple fishermen, tax-gatherers, etc., with no educated or influential men amongst them. They were helpless, illiterate, friendless, and were about te be left without Him and on their own resources. He said to them the words of tho text, and what was the result of it? To-day, in every part of the world, men of every color and of every shade of thought, at the name of Jesus bowed before God, while even men who did not believe in Him l'ocognised His claims. Every humanitarian movement in the world had its rise in the lands where tho Gospel is preached, and there are no hospitals in non-Christian lands that have not been built through the influence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. His own explanation was that He was the Son of God who had boon sent to teach men and save them from their sins. Dare any man arrogate to himself the power of Almighty God unless he were a madman, or what lie claimed to be, tlie Saviour of the World? Every man was savable, and the Gospel was for every creature in every land, and glory be to that Saviour of the World who had sent that band of men forth to preach it. Only those who believed it would he saved, and those who did not would bo-condemned. God never yet sent a man to Hell and never would, but every man not born again by the spirit of Jesus had cut himself off from the Presence, and would go out from it into Hell, as was said of Judas,' “He went unto his own place.” Air. Gray concluded his address by a stirring appeal to bis bearers to give God tho opportunity of saving them, and then when this life was over they should seo Him for ever and ever, and serve Him without sin. At the conclusion of the main meeting. an after-meeting for .prayer was held and was well attended.