CHEERFUL CHRISTIANITY.

Inangahua Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1338, 19 December 1883, Page 3

CHEERFUL CHRISTIANITY.

+: At a soiree in Wellington a few days ■ago the Timas reports that the chief feature of the meeting was the able, learned, and practical lay sermon given by the R-ev. Professor Salrnond, D.D., •of Dunedin. The cold formalism and abstention from all cheerful. enjoyments which some persons regarded as the correct evidences of Christain piety were objected to as an unhealthy survival of the old mistaken asceticism of the monastic system, which went to excess in the wrong dh'ection. True | piety and religion did notreqivire persons j to punish the .body and suppress all inclination to enjoyment. It was a harsh and narrow Christianity which required a man to look pale, haggard. ■bilious, and dyspeptic "Religion meant true happiness, and it followed that religious people should look joyous because they felt so. Healthy outdoor sports, cheerful indoor amusements, and general heartiness in all their doings were proper accompaniments of religious life. Dyspeptic ascetics, who made' then* lives gloomy and lived on pills, were not models of true piety, but rather examples to b$ avoided by cheerful Christians. — (Laighter.) Just as physical health indicate,- happiness nnd a vigorous play of the emotions, so piety was saving health and soundness. ' 'c warned them also not to fall into the ignorant mistake of dreading the discoveries and denouncing the truths of science ; for it was monstrous to assert that there could be any divorce between piety and the rpason of man. Reason was from God as much aa the Bible was, for reason was the only faculty of knowing anything. Truth in every form should he welcomed, whether written by God in the rocks as revealed by geology, or written in Bile history. Let them be candid and feai-less investigators ; let them riot be denunciators of scientific seekers after the truths of Nature, but strive to have large intellects and humble faith."- (Applause.)