Mexborough and Swinton Times May 25, 1928
Wesley Hall
Acquisition to Goldthorpe
New Building Opened.
Goldthorpe Wesleyan Methodists were very joyful yesterday, when Mrs. J. D. Davis, of Doncaster, opened their beautiful new hall. Previously the Wesleyans had had a small wooden hut. The new hall has been erected at a cost of £6,885, of which £1,200 has yet to be raised. There was an initial gift of £5,000 from an anonymous donor, and other money was raised by the sale of the hut and by various efforts. It is expected that the General Chapel Committee will give generous assistance with the outstanding debt.
The hall will seat 380 on the ground floor and 75 in the gallery. There are rooms on either side of the hall separated by moveable partitions, and here may be accommodated another 100 persons. These rooms, with other ante-rooms, will be used for Sunday school.
The Rev. J. E. Reilly, M.C., presided at the opening ceremony, and the Rev. Frank
Cox, of Sheffield, led the devotions. The hall was filled. The platform was decorated with flowers, given by Mrs. Harrison, of Marr, and her friends.
Supporting Mr. Reilly were the Rev. Frank Cox, of Sheffield, Chairman of the District; the Rev. Dennis Kemp; Superintendent of the Wath Circuit; the Rev. J. Barrett, Congregational minister at Goldthorpe; Pastor Smyth, of Denaby; Pastor Tempest of South Kirkby; the Rev. R. S. Armsby, of Rotherham, and: the Rev. R. Shepherd, of Swinton.
Opening Ceremony.
The Rev. J. E. Reilly remarked that the erection of the Weslev Hall had considerably brightened up that corner of Goldthorpe, but that change was nothing to the greater change which they expected to see in the hearts and homes of the people. They had built the hall in that hope. He asked Sir Gelder, the architect, to present a golden replica of the key to Mrs. Davis, and said that Captain Davis was one of the most faithful and devoted of their workers and one of the earliest friends of the South Yorkshire Coalfields Mission. They were grateful to Mr. Jenkinson, the builder, for having erected such a beautiful hall.
Sir Alfred said they were delighted to confer upon Mrs. Davis the honour of declaring the hall open.
Mrs. Davis offered her warm congratulations on the completion of their task, and. thanked them for having conferred upon her that honour. Ever since she and her husband came to the South Yorkshire coalfield 16 years ago, Captain Davis had been interested in the problems of Goldthorpe, and it was just over 15 years’ since she was there at a meeting held in a tent to consider how the spiritual needs of growing Goldthorpe might be met. Similar problems faced them all over the district, and the Coalfields Mission had no money with which to erect such halls as those, but they had two wooden huts, and one of them was taken to Goldthorpe. ” I think I can claim a wee share in the work because my daughter and I came here with Captain Davis and helped to paint the hut.”. (Laughter.)
Dedicatory Sermon.
Having led the dedicator i prayer, the Rev. F. Cox preached from the II Corinthians xv. 7: ” Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak: for your work shall be rewarded.” He believed this was a message for them for the Church and for England to-day. It called us hack from our absortion in material things to the claims of spiritual standards; it showed the supremacy of the spiritual in the life of the community. It reminded them that those who were doing spiritual work were touching the welfare of the community, the nation and the world, more directly and permanently then any others.
There had arisen in late years a new form of a very old error. Sometimes we laughed at the good people of a few generations ago; we said that they made an unwarranted distinction between the sacred and the secular, and that the distinction was false in itself and had led to a great deal of confusion. He told the story of the old Scots lady who locked up the piano on Sundays because he regarded it as secular, and unlocked the harmonium because she said it was sacred.
We smiled at that story and thanked God we did not make any such ridiculous distinction, but he, the preacher, was certain that we had made quite as foolish a mistake which had landed us into far worse trouble. That mistake was the distinction which we sought to make between what we called the spiritual and the practical.
To-day we called upon our politicians, legislators, and social reformers. our Labour leaders and leaders in industry, our preachers and teachers, ” to be practical.” It sounded wise, but we did not see in our blindness that the spiritual was the practical, and that whenever the spiritual was ignored one was always wrong in practice; that unless God and spiritual things were put first the whole order of things was wrong. Life was fundamentally spiritual in itself; it was the controlling force, and if they ignored the spiritual nothing ever came right. There could be no greater folly that to say; ” We don’t want to bother about religion; we want to be practical.”
Evening Sessions.
After tea, Pastor Tempest led community singing. The evening gathering was again largely attended, and Mr. R. J. Soper, of Barnsley, presided. Mr. Salkeld sang a solo,, and the principal speakers were the Rev: F. Cox and the Rev. J. Hornabrook, of Manchester, who celebrated his 80th birthday on Wednesday.
Mr. Cox emphasised his message of the afternoon, and said that one of the greatest mistakes that was made in life was that we were always doing elaborate reckonings without taking into consideration the–prime factor ; none of our clever reckoning would ever come right unless we brought in God and saw everything in the light of his presence
Mr. Reilly gave a financial statement, and acknowledged a donation of £3 3s. from Mr. J. W., Downs, and several donations of 10s. from other friends .
Coalfield Burdens.
Mr. Hornabrook said he deeply sympathised with those who lived in, colliery districts in this time of industrial depression. He could most find any words with which to express his admiration for the way in which peole were bearing their burdens. He wanted them to understand that Methodism cared for them and entered into their difficulties.
It had been a joy to, in what must be the closing years of his official life, through the resources placed at his disposal, to do much for colliery districts. He greatly admired the man who faced the difficulties and dangers of the mine, and he would say that they had no better type of Methodism than that which they found in the mining villages. (Applause.) He had seen about £100,000 expended in this area, and although there was very little left, he assured, them that for that hall they would have no great burden to shoulder:
A Great Anniversary.
Mr. Hornabrook recalled that May 24 was .a great anniversary in Methodism, for it was-upon that day in 1738 that John Wesley declared that he felt his heart “strangely warmed.” Someone had said that when that ‘happened the temperature of Christendom rose. And so it did, and it had never cooled since. He bad no use for pessimists. It was a great thing to get people to see clearly and not to look through coloured glasses, , and he could show them, had he time, that notwithstanding all that the pessimists had to say against the present age, the church, or the nation, it was the best age that the world had ever known. The power that had characterised Methodism was still with them.
He hoped they would cherish the spirit of adventure in the church. In Manchester last week one speaker said that Methodism was losing its spirit of adventure, and he (Mr. Hornabrook) agreed that it was in places where they had lost the spirit of solicitude.
If they concerned themselves with their neighbours’ salvation they would be on the road to an adventurous life. He was very thankful that Methodism was true to the old evangelical note, for there was no note that sounded the heart as did it. If they eliminated the supernatural element they would have no gospel left. .There was no salvation in the Socialistic doctrine; there was no salvation in the aesthetic doctrine; the secularist gospel, nor, so far as he could make out from its exponents, in the modernist gospel. There was in this age a great need of Methodist witness, (Applause),