"RECALL TO RELIGION."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 108, 8 May 1937, Page 18

"RECALL TO RELIGION."

MESSAGE TO PRESBYTERIANS. CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) . DUNEDIN, Friday. "In the Coronation service which will be held at the very heart of the Empire and echoed wide throughout the whole world, our people are, 'being called upon to witness and in some real sense to share in what is essentially a great national recognition of God as the Supreme Ruler, by Whom kings reign and princes decree justice," says the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, the Right Rev. T. H. Roseveare in a Coronation message.

"For our King and Queen as they solemnly dedicate themselves to their high task in the presence of the King of Kings it will doubtless signify a sincere and earnest consecration of themselves for their great and responsible duties, and an equally fervent desire for that anointing of the Divine Spirit without which they could not dare to undertake them. What is the Coronation to signify for us people over whom our King is called to reign? Shall it not mean that we, too, make this great occasion in our national history not merely a time for solemn pomp and pageantry and for widespread rejoicing, but, above all, a time for dedicating ourselves, as in the sight of God, to the tasks of Christian citizenship? I specially address myself to the great multitude of people, churchgoing and non-churchgoing, who within this Dominion call themselves by the name of Presbyterian.

"We are a profoundly loyal people and, all alike, are deeply moved by the fact of the approaching Coronation. Moreover, we realise that, both from a national and international point of view, we are faced with grave and even tremendous responsibilities. May the Coronation of our King not only serve to reaffirm our faith as a nation in the essentially religious conception of his position and task, but may it sound forth a clarion call to his people to pay fresh heed to the strengthening of the religious foundations upon which alone we can securely build!

"Remembering that 'righteousness alone exalteth a nation' I join most wholeheartedly in the noble 'recall to religion' which the Archbishop of Canterbury has issued in this connection, and pray that it may meet with a sincere response throughout our land."