HOLY TRINITY CHURCH.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3152, 23 February 1911, Page 3

HOLY TRINITY CHURCH.

CONFIRMATION SERVICE. EIGHTY CANDIDATES CONFIRMED The Right Rev. Dr. Averill, Bishop of Waiapu, 1 conducted a confirmation service at Holy Trinity Church last evening. The church was packed and 30 candidates —34 men and boys and 46 women and girls—were presented by the Vicar (the Rev. L. Dawson Thomas) for confirmation. Bishop Averill, in his address to the candidates, pointed l out that they were being ordained just as the clergy wero i ordained, and were now being sent into the world to worship God and to work for God. When children were baptised, they generally had godparents, and why did they have godparents? For this reason: that when they were baptised they received a great gift from God—the glorified nature of Jesus Christ—and the church would not take the responsibility of baptising an infant unless someone was prepared to undertake that the 'Child was taught the meaning of baptism, that glorious position in which it has been placed. The candidates were that evening going to complete their baptism. They were going to receive the Holy Spirit and the, church said that she dare not bestow on them) this great gift unless they were prepared to pledge that they were in earnest. They had to stand up before God and the congregation and say that they believed in the Lord Jesus Christ; they intended to serve Him and obey His commandments, and that they would he true soldiers and servants till their life’s end. That was the pledge they had to give to the church. The church wanted to know they were in earnest and that night when they were sent- out ordained to the priesthood of the laity, should be the night of their lives. They were going to stand up and openly confess Christ before men. Jesus had told them that if they were not afraid to confess Him He would not he afraid 1 to confess them before God and the angels. That night God would send them out as true workers for the church, and lie prayed that He would give therm strength to keep their vows. His Lordship then performed the act of confirmation.

Bishop Averill then preached from Luke 11., 7: “There was no room for them in the inn.” These words, said his Lordship, were spoken concerning Jesus Christ when He was horn into the world. There was no room for those poor strangers in the ordinary accommodation house when they wont to Betholehem, and so they were driven for shelter into a stable. It was there that Christ was horn. Now, those confirmed had pledged ; themselves to be faithful and true to the Lord Jesus Christ, and the strength of the Holy Spirit was given to them to enable them to live the groat life that Jesus Christ lived when Tie came into the world. When Jesus Christ was teaching in the world and revealing truths concerning this life and the life to come people turned away from Him because there was no room for Him. Their minds were always filled up with their own affairs. He did not run after them and if people at the present time refused to believe His word 1 He would not run after them. As they saw Christ on the Cross they saw Him crowded out of this: life. Were they going to find room for Jesus or were they going to crowd Him out? It was not that people wore wilfully doing wrong and wilfully refusing Christ, but they were letting so many worldly tilings "fill their lives that thev had no room for higher things and allowed their souls to starve. There was no room for Jesus Christ in this twentieth century just as there was in the first. He appealed to this who were confirmed to find roonu in, their lives for Jesus. They had to remember they had promised to serve Jesus and if they went- out to fight against temptation He would help them. During the service a number of an propriate hymns were sung and 1 a collection was taken up in aid of the r iind for the erection ofTa new pulpit, as a memorial- to the late-Can on Y ebb, wno was for many years Vicar of Holy Trinity Church.