FROM THE VICAR

My dear People,

My institution at Sandhurst has now been fixed for All Saints Day, 1st November, at 7.30 p.m. This means that I shall still be able to write you one more Letter. But space is short and I long to say a lot before I leave.

One of the things I feel deeply about is the great and fearful responsibilities of parents. In the last three months I have had an unusually large number of baptisms. This is excellent - parents wishing their children to start life as members of the Christian Church and in the strength of the Holy Spirit. But I beg them and all parents of school-age children to remember that this is only the beginning of their responsibilities for the spiritual welfare of their children. They have promised before God a lot more than just teaching them a few baby prayers and sending them to Sunday School. They have promised to bring them up to "lead a godly and Christian life" within the worshipping body of the Church. This means things like family worship and parents applying Christian standards to all aspects of life, whether work or leisure. I am more than ever convinced that, if parents do this, they are giving their children literally the most valuable thing in life. This seemed very apparent in an interview on TV last week of Canon Collins of St. Paul's. His childhood upbringing within the Church had given him a firm faith which had weathered a deep rebelliousness and yet had aroused an acute social conscience. Or again, the other day I was reading some words of Professor A. L. Rowse, who had left the Church:-

"The Church of England .... remains in the background inseparable from my childhood and growth into manhood; its ritual phrases come readily to my lips .... and no doubt when I am old and dying, the comforting phrases will come back .... with the force of their having been among the earliest upon my lips in childhood."

Parents, for the sake of the children you love, "think on these things."

May I remind you that our Harvest Thanksgiving is next Sunday, 13th October. At 11 o'clock there will be the usual offering of harvest gifts by children; please come and fill the church as last year. Sunday, 27th October, will be my last Sunday and I much hope that as many as possible will join me in our ancient and homely parish church.

Your sincere friend and Vicar,

JOHN GREEN.