CITY SERVICE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 224, 22 September 1938, Page 12

CITY SERVICE.

PRAYERS FOR PEACE. GUIDANCE FOR EMPIRE. WORLD CONFLICT THREAT. The bells in the lower of St. Matthew's Church shortly after noon to-day summoned 1*)0 city workers out of the din and hustle of the traffic below to offer prayers of intercession for peace in a war-threatened world. In the peaceful sanctuary of the church they heard Archbishop Averill, Primate of Xew Zealand, express earnest hopes that a peaceful solution to all the world's difficulties would be found. His Grace prayed that guidance would be given those eeek s ig to avoid world conflict, and that a more brotherly spirit would be made to exist between man and man and nation and nation.

"We must ask God to soften the hearts of those who are precipitating this crisis, so that millions will be spared the horror, misery and futility of another world conflict," hk Grace said. "We must pray that peace and concord will prevail in the world; that our Empire wi'l hot bo dragged into wi- ir.d that i! will still be used bv Cod a* a world peacemaker. We inu«i pray that Great ftrilnin will be strengthen,*! and guided in its efforts to save men from destroy irg oie another."

1 raycr can never be regarded a* a kind of fetish to gain the favour of «.od, or as a lever to overrule or change Hiri mind, or a* a jast resort when everything else has failed, or as an attempt to gain blessings for oneself at the expense of others," his Grace continued. "God favours neither nation nor race. Before we pray we mu*t have the right attitude to God—and that is the free acceptance of His universal fatherhood. We must recognke Hk fatherly attitude to all nations; we must visualise Hk fatherly heart torn with anguish a.» brothers destroy brothers and women and children suffer."

This recognition of God as a Father was the one and only solution to the world's ills. Christians had a bounden duty to pray for the recognition of this great unifying <truth in the hearts, of men and nations. If men could be persuaded to believe in the Fatherhood of God there would be no wars.

At a time like the present there was always the danger of giving way to mass hysteria and imagining that prayer was ndt enough to raise God to action. The people must remember that God needed no arousing; He was always waiting for the people's co-operation. Present discussion between Britain's representatives and Herr Hitler were bound with great issues. " His Grace asked that prayers be offered for a right judgment. God had used Great Britain wonderfully &a a peacemaker; it was the people's duty to pray that He would do so again.