DOMINION DAY

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 252, 23 September 1929, Page 2

DOMINION DAY

SPECIAL CHURCH SERVICE.

BOROUGH COUNCILLORS PRESENT. A special Dominion Day service was conducted at St. Andrew’s Church yesterday morning by Rev. G. T. Brown, M.A., whose subject for the sermon was the “City of Vision.” His Worship the Mayor, borough councillors and heads of borough departments were present and were welcomed in their official capacities by the minister.

In extending the welcome, Rev, Mr Brown said that it seemed a wise and useful thing to make this courteous gesture on special occasions. It was a recognition on the part of the organised Christian Church of the selfsacrificing and often thankless efforts that those gentlemen were prepared to put forth for the benefit of the borough. On the other hand, it was a graceful acknowledgment on the part of tho civic authorities of tho important place in the community life that must be played by the forces of organised Christianity. In a very real sense, it was a combined effort to upbuild a clean, healthy, well-equipped city of men, women and children animated with the spirit of justice, righteousness, wholesome purity and moral strength. The first part of that programme was in the hands of the Borough Council; the latter part belonged to the Christian Chu r cli. In such a gathering as that of the occasion each encouraged tho other. “CITY OP VISION.”

“Some blatantly practical poopie affect to despise the visionary dreamer and I suppose there have been a tew individuals who seem to have justified the contemptuous laughter of their busy work-a-day fellows,” stated Rev. Mr Brown in dealing with the “City of Vision.” They were so much engrossed with the immediate “pick-and-shovel” work that they had no time to lift up their eyes to the plan setting forth tho completed structure. In fact, too many people worked on without a plan. The practical man, to be effective, must first of all be a visionary. This was particularly the case in the building of a city. The writer of Revelation was first of all a visionary. No doubt, too, ho was a great patriot and a great citizen. Ho loved his city, despite her faults, and since he had known the transforming power of Jesus Christ he beheld new possibilities in the city. H& bad a vision, “I, John, saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of Heaven.” Firstly, it was a vision of a city in which there was nothing that defiled, nothing that worked abomination or made a lie; and secondly, its origin was not from beneath but from above. It came down from God out of Heaven. The prime responsibility of eveiy Christian patriot, either councillor or ordinary citizen, was to make the place of his abode a better, purer, nioio wholesome place simply because of ms presence therein. That seemed such a fundamental principle that it was almost a truism. God had equipped our civic authorities to transform the city into a veritable City of God. THE FUTURE CITY.

To do that, they must have a vision vision of a new Palmerston North. What would that vision contain? Judging by the progress of the past 50 years, that of tho next 50 or IUU years would almost bankrupt imagination. Could they see a city of stately shops, a palatial post office, finely equipped with broadcasting and receiving sets, great newspaper offices similarly equipped, a proud pile of university buildings, great landing places and aerodromes and huge masts for the anchorage of the Auckland to Bluff, the intercolonial and overseas air iiners, playing grounds for adults and children, concrete roads, including motor boulevard, where the dirty, noisy old-fashioned railways once used to run? Could they envisage a city with a payable transport service, an adequate drainage system, a plentiful and cheap supply of power, light and clean water (perhaps that seemed almost too visionary, unless perhaps it was artesian) ? Was it a city of peaceful homes and happy lives, a city from which had been abolished the greed of the gambling craze, the drink shop, the “dope” den and every other known fountain of moral poison? A place where love had ousted greed and where strength of character had triumphed over moral weakness. Where all men knew the Lord and loved and served His Christ. Could they behold that City of Vision? When the yhad been mastered by the sight of God’s plan for their city, then they must turn their eyes earthwards and, with set jaw and rolled up sleeves, set about laying the foundation. They must begin just where they were in their efforts to make Palmerston North a bit of heaven. They could make their homo as like heaven as it was possible to be, not only in cleanliness, ornamentation and repair, but by filling it with love, thoughtfulness and cheer, with the Spirit, of Jesus, without whom there could be no heaven.

Then in the city, they must do the same thing, clean it up, beautify it, strengthen tho things that were weak, mend the. tilings that were broken, remove the things that defile in the streets, the hoardings, the newspapers, the shops, destroying deceit and falseness from all human relations and filling tho whole civic life with Christian love, purity and trustfulness. That was the only way the City of Vision could become the city of reality. It was a long process and depended upon the permeation of life by the Spirit of Christ, which was often slow. Christ had warned that “the Kingdom of God cometh not with observation’ ’: it was like leaven hid in meal, and they were to be leaven, perhaps at times creating a ferment, yet doing the work of leaven, i.e., to raise something. Their most effective contribution was a personal one. By far the greatest thing they could do for their city was to be good men, Christian men of action, practical citizens. If ten righteous had been found in Sodom, it would not have collapsed. REALISATION OF DREAM.

The realisation of that dream must come from above. The building cf the city must bo on heavenly or spiritual principles. To be lasting it must be a spiritual growth. It was quite conceivable that man, by wealth and influence, might build a city of marble halls and tiled streets, equipped with every delight—a city perfect in organisation and ideal in management, yet a city from which the glory had deEarted. The glory of a city must ever e fits people and the strength and stability of any people was character. That alone could 6olve its problems and meet its needs and that was a spiritual thing and came down from above. It was born of God in ttye souls of men. Purely civic efforts could only prepare the ground for it. Thus the Church of Jesus Christ, and the Borough Council were but fellowlabourers in one great task—a city “whose builder and maker is God,” a city fit for His abode, founded upon the Rock of His Righteousness, a city filled with His Spirit and inspired with His Love. Let them, with the courage of an abiding faith gird them-

selves for the task, and, recognising that tliey were fellow-labourers with God, they must ever humbly seek His guidance, wisdom, patience, love, that, as wise master builders, they might lay the true foundation, and then take heed how they built thereon.