100 years ago: June 1900

Canadian Churchman reported that the subject of church attendance is one of enormous importance, demanding grave thought and heart searching. Among other questions asked, a prominent place is given to this one: Is poor preaching the cause or effect of poor attendance? If one has the patience to read more or less widely among the divines of the 18th century, who got themselves into print through some law of supply and demand that to us is inscrutable, one will be amazed to see how platitudinous and how ineffective it all seems today.

The Guardian thinks that the preacher should be brief, and, while confining himself to a single theme, unite "interest, freshness, point, definiteness, applicability, unity, both in subject matter and mode." Certainly such preaching would be both popular and profitable, but neither the English Church nor our own will have such preachers, save as rare exceptions. The difficulty is, first, to find good men, when we are unwilling to pay them, and then, to get these men to learn to preach; which does not come by nature.

 

 

50 years ago: June 1950

Canadian Churchman reported that the Executive Committee of the Council for Social Service passed a Resolution respectfully urging upon the Prime Minister of Quebec its opinion that the operation of the recent legislation known as the Padlock Law is working hardship upon minorities and that such legislation is not in the best interests of human rights and freedoms which Canadians have enjoyed in all Provinces.

 

 

25 years ago: June 1975

Canadian Churchman reported that a group of French Canadian businessmen has purchased the equipment and rights to make the renowned Oka brand cheese from the Trappist Monks. The cheese has been prepared since 1893 under a cloak of secrecy by the Trappist Monks of the Cistercian Abbey of Notre Dame-du-Lak situated at the junction of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers near Oka, west of Montreal. Production has been estimated at between 900,000 and one million pounds of cheese per year. The sale price has not been released....

(Rev. E.H. Johnson) "As a Christian, one returns from China deeply challenged by these people who seem to have outlived us at almost every point of our own Christian ethical teachings. They are professing atheists, but in many ways their practices are closer to Christian teaching of service and love than many in our society. We profess Christianity, but in many ways, act as though we were practising atheists - in a society where the aim is to enrich oneself, even at the expense of others, and to multiply material possessions."