DAY OF PRAYER

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 212, 8 September 1941, Page 7

DAY OF PRAYER

CHURCHES CROWDED

Broadcast Addresses By Church Leaders UP.A. and British Wireless. Rec. noon. LONDON, Sept. 7. The churches were more crowded than us'ual for the National Day of Prayer. The King and Queen attended service at a little church in the country. They were accompanied by the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Cosmo Lang, in a broadcast address, said that only now did we realise the greatness of the deliverance when last year's Battle of Britain was won by the valour of our air forces. He asked for remembrance in thoughts and prayers of Russia's armies in their fierce ordeal, of her workers and her peasants who were driven from the soil and from the homes they loved, and also for all oppressed nations.

" He said that there could be no compromise—indeed no neutrality— between the conception of man's dignity for which the Allies are fighting and the Nazi conception that the State is all powerful, acknowledging no right but its own might.

"We must see," he said, "in this tremendous conflict nothing less than a struggle between these two whollyopposite conceptions of the meaning and purpose of man's life. One is that man is the child of God, created in his Father's image and responsible to his Creator. To meet this responsibility he must have freedom of thought, speech and worship, and the opportunity to develop his whole personality. He is bound to claim truth, mercy and justice between man and man.

"Under the Nazi doctrine, if truth, mercy, justice and freedom stand in the way of the all-powerful State, claiming to be the instrument of a superior race extending away over the world, they must give place to it_ We see these principles thrust aside and trampled underfoot throughout Europe by the armed forces of the German State," he said. "But the deepest need of man if not vindication of his rights but redemption from his sins. Only the Christian Gospel holds out hope of redemption." The True Peace Essential "If racial pride and selfish utilitarianism are allowed to defeat the aims of the present struggle." said Cardinal Hinsley in a broadcast.

"then, as in 1918. we shall gain only respite from war. Christ will not let us have peace at any price: the true peace for which we pray is the peace which was promised tu men of goodwill."

Cardinal Hinsiev. while endorsine; the aims declared by A r Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt including freedom from fear, said: "There is another fear which we must "pray God to instil into our hearts. The heart of man stands in need of fear—fear of losing God's love. From this fear comes the fulfilment of the law, and herein lies that essential security which human contrivance by itself is unable to guarantee for the happiness of mankind. We are being tried in fie."

The Cardinal askrct particularly for prayers for Poland. "Never was a people so mercilessly treated by a cruel invader. Poland has nowconcluded a pact witli the Russian people in order that her sons, and especially young Rirls. may be delivered from a slavery more awful than death.

'Russia has been guilty of great wrongs to others and Poland also, but peoples whose rulers are wrong do not forfeit all their own rights. We pray that the defence of Russia's rights may nelp to repair Poland's unmerited wrongs."

CHURCH OF IRELAND Join Rest Of Britain On Day Of Prayer I'I,EA FOR COUKAOK Rec. 2.30 p.m. RUGBY. Sept. 7. The Archbishop of Armagh, Roman Catholic Piimate of all Ireland, in a broadcast, said that the people of the Church of Ireland gladly join with their fellow Christians of England, Scotland. Wales and Northern Ireland in their observance of the day of national prayer.

"We arc thus enabled," he said, '•'to show our close partnership with you in the deepest and most vital realities of national life. We share your belief that the existence of all that is worth living for as people is threatended by the designs of the enemy. Our prayers are united with yours that God will give us and our Allies the courage to endure whatever further sufferings and losses that may await us. and the strength to go forward without flinching.''