VALUE OF FAMILY LIFE

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27498, 4 November 1954, Page 9

VALUE OF FAMILY LIFE

Governor-General Sees Task For Churches SPEECH TO PRESBYTERIAN ASSEMBLY (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, November 3. Recent events had awakened New Zealand to the importance of family life, said the Governor-General (Sir Willoughby Norrie) before the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand at Wellington today. “Although the public imagination Can be temporarily stirred people can, and unfortunately do, forget all too quickly,” said his Excellency. “It is up to the Church, the greatest agency m the world, to keep people’s consciences awake. I have every confidence in the young people of today, and I know the Church is doing all it can to look after and encourage youth. We have a great admiration for what is being done in the Sunday schools and by those who teach, but we need more and more teachers and leaders, both in the church and in movements like the boy scouts, girl guides, and Life Brigade. “I feel that the restoration of the family unit to the place it held in the community a generation or so ago is vital to the well-being of both young and old.” he said. “Within the Church this restoration of the family spirit is equally important. There is no easy road to tread, and it is simple enough for me or others to give advice, but we can all help if we only try in our own ways.

i “The greatest need in this distracted age is for a deeper Christian faith,” said nis Excellency. “People are all too prone to turn to God only in times of danger. On all sides we have evidence that we are becoming more materialistic, thinking too much of money and ourselves rather than of others and the good of this country as a whole.”

A spiritual revival and unity between churches was vitally necessary, the Governor-General said. The greater the unity of churches the more forceful would be their impact on the life of the community. Unity of command was essential to life. The condition of achievement was to put all one’s powers under a single overriding allegiance. The best pattern of life should be that of the British Commonwealth, where a diversity of peoples were united by one final loyalty.