Mr Nordmeyer’s Christmas Message

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30634, 28 December 1964, Page 12

Mr Nordmeyer’s Christmas Message

(Neto Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, December 27. The new spirit of understanding which existed between people of the various Christian Churches and between Christians and those of other beliefs was one of the greatest developments of our times, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Nordmeyer) said in his Christmas message.

Mr Nordmeyer said this new spirit had its effects—its beneficial effects—in all aspects of our lives, and was proof that good, in the long run, would win through. Christmas in New Zealand is traditionally a time of bustle.

“For weeks before-hand most of us are preoccupied with Christmas parties and Christmas shopping and when Christmas does come, most of us leave for our annual holidays,” “In all this bustle and pre-

paration, the real significance of Christmas is too often overlooked.

“The rush and confusion which seems to dominate our Christmas scene rather obscures the important fact that, above all, Christmas is the season of peace. It is the season of goodwill,” said Mr Nordmeyer. “Every Christmas brings us back to the great lessons that the saviour taught us at his birth. They are salutary lessons for a troubled mankind which, for the greater part of the year, tends to forget them. “It is a standing reproach to all of us that millions of people in many countries are living in conditions of poverty, hunger and helplessness.”

“We live in an age of enlightenment, so we claim, in spite of the horrors of the Congo and the unending strife in Vietnam.

“The unrest to our north in particular- has implications for New Zealand in that we can no longer afford to believe that we are remote from the rest of the world. “Since Samuel Marsden first preached the Christmas message in New Zealand on this day 150 years ago life has become infinitely more complicated. “But the message of Christmas is as timeless and changeless, as simple and uncomplicated today as it was when Marsden first brought it to this land in 1814, and indeed when Christ himself first taught it nearly 2000 years ago.”