HONOURING WAR DEAD

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26095, 24 April 1950, Page 3

HONOURING WAR DEAD

NEED FOR SACRIFICE AMONG LIVING

“Only by giving ourselves to live for the days of peace as sacrificially as they gave their lives in warfare can those who are living to-day sincerely and genuinely honour the memory of the dead of the last two world wars, ’ said the Rev. W. S. Brettell, speaking at a service at the St. Albans Presbyterian Church yesterday morning, when the St. Albans sub-branch of the Returned Services’ Association held its annual Anzac Day parade. On such occasions. Mr Brettell said, he had a horror of saying anything “just pious or sentimentally glib.” “In our name and for our sake in the name of God and for the sake of generations yet unborn, make it impossible for the ghastly thing called war ever to stalk the world again. . . . Until and unless you do this we have died in vain,” was the message the dead gave to the living, continued Mr Brettell. He said that sacrific was inextricably woven into human nature. There was only one way men could know peace, justice and freedom—that was the way of obedience to Christ, and that obedience meant a sacrifice of self.

Twenty-three former servicemen, including three South African veterans, paraded to the service under Ser-geant-Major A. L. Emerson, formerly of the New Zealand Permanent Staff. The St. Andrew’s College Highland Pipe Band led the parade.