ANZAC DAY.

Clutha Leader, Volume XLII, Issue 84, 28 April 1916, Page 5

ANZAC DAY.

BALCLUTHA'S COMMEMORATION.

UNITED RELIGIOUS SERVICE.

The religious service in connection with the Anzae; celebration was held iu, the Oddfellows' Hall, Balclutha, on Tuesday evening. The attendance was fair, and perhaps, considering the holiday season, good, though it wa? felt that more might have made an effort to be present. Rev. «. W". Currie, the Anglican lay reader (Mr Gordon) and Captain Briddock (Salvation Army) conducted the service, Rev. Currie giving a short address. The hymns were "O God, Our Help," " Jesus, Lover of My Soul,'' "Nearer My God to Thee" and'"Abide with Me." Miss Bennett gave an appropriate rendering of the solo '"Peace," and Mrs F. .1. Ramsay presided at the piano. AN IMPRESSIVE ADDRESS.

Rev. S. Currie said that the service was a memorial one, and he understood the great central service at Westminster Abbey would partake o'f that character. It spoke of the living as well as of the dead; it spoke to us stay-at-hemes as truly as to the men who fought and suffered and died in An/.ae. Bay just a year ago that night. "It has many voices," said the speaker. "It is a memorial; it is a celebration; it is a call. We cannot but think of the gallant dead of these southern lands who to-night (ill those lonely graves in far away Gallipoli. They were just common men—men from the farm and workshop, and business house and office,—but at the call of duty for King and country they responded nobly and gladly, and to-day we call them heroes. They went out not knowing what awaited them, to suffer, and, if need be, to die. You may have seen the little print—in any case we would think of it to-night, and its lesson for us—the picture of the lad in khaki, stretched out in death, and bending over him the thorn-crowned Man, and under'neath the familiar words, 'Greater fove hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends.' And for righteousness and freedom our brave lads have gone out, and in their thousands have made the great sacrifice. We would think well of them. As' men they had their faults and failings, but it is not for the wisest of us to pass judgment. Instead we stay our hearts on the infinite grace of God, our Father in Heaven, and remind ourselves and others of the great words we so often sing:

'There is no place where earth's sorrows Are more felt than up in heaven; There is no place where earth's failings Have such kindly judgment given. For the love of God is broader

Than the measures of man's mind; And the heart of the Eternal Is most wonderfully kind.' I do not scruple to say with Tennyson, in his Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, 'God accept them; Christ receive them.' But we would remember also the wounded and the sorrowing. It is a sail day for many, and for several of our own number, and we beg most respectfully to tender to them our sheerest sympathy.

A CELEBRATION. "But our service is also a'celebration. We commemorate a great event, the landing of our troops in Anzac Bay, April 2."i, 11115.' The speaker then referred to the memorable landing of the troops and the subsequent campaign on the Gallipoli Peninsula, and stated that the service that, night was a

CALL TO THANKSGIVING. That, rightly understood, was insepar able from the idea of a celebration.

"It satisfies," said the speaker, "our pride of race to Mini our men behaving themselves so worthily, but if they deserve our praise surely it is only right to thank Cod for the line qualities they displayed in a very trying hour; and, 'back of that, for the ready self-sacrifice which led them to leave home and friends to meet the enemy. To-night, indeed, we speak of Anzac, 'but, more broadly, in connection with the war as a whole, we have much for which to thank Cod. As we think of the might of Germany, and of her hardness and cruelty, things might have 'been much worse for us. We thank God for a just and righteous cause; we thank Him for our brave Allies; we thank Him for a united Umpire; we thank Him for the splendid response made by Canada, and .South Africa, and India, and, very definitely to-night, by the. men of our sister 'Commonwealth and of our own Dominion. "But the call is a eail equally to HUMILIATION.

We have much indeed to thauk God for, but we have also much for which confession should daily be made'; and it will be for our good, and it will also make for victory, if that 'confession be full and hearty. I believe with all my heart with one of oilr ministers, _\tr Gray Dixon, in some remarks recently made at Dunediii. 'Wo will win,' said .Mr Dixon, 'in this war if we are morally Jit to win, but if' God permitted us to win without moral fitness bhe victory would be a victory only in appearance.' Hon.' D. Lloyd George is a great politician; [ might quote him as a great preacher: 'We have 'been living,' he says, 'in a sheltered valley for generations. We have been too comfortable, and too indulgent, many perhaps too selfish, ami the stern hand of fate has seourged us to an elevation where we can see the great everlasting things that matter for a nation —the great peaks we had forgotten, of honour, duty, patriotism, and, elad in glittering white, the great pinnacle of sacrifice pointing like a rugged finger to heaven.' I trust this great statesman is right, and that as a people we have come at least to see these things. A terrible war, the greatest the world has ever seen, is an awful price to pay for the purification of the nations, and for our own in particular. "But the day is also," continued the speaker, (< a call to

GREATER SACRIFICE. Having begun so well we cannot hold 'back. These men whose memory we would to-night embalm made the great sacrifice, and in, coriiparisou with that nothing that most of us can do can amount to much. Their mates who survive stand in the spirit of their service, for they, too, offered their lives, on the same high platform. What in return can we do* Well, for one thing, it is for our young men to fill their places. There are for those of us who stay at home other sacrifices to make. Says someone, 'For the purposes of this war the State wants two things, men and money; and so if the call is that in the hour of danger we should 'be willing to part with our men it is no less definitely to

ECONOMY, and, as it seems to me, to far greater economy that we are practising. Our industries should be used for the production of the things which make our prosecution of the war more effective rather than of the things which minister to our pleasures. "Our cause we cannot but believe is A RIGHTEOCK CAUSE.

We took up arms against an intolerably aggressive power. We are fighting for truth, for freedom, for the right of smaller nations to exist, ami as we see now, and indeod saw all along, for our very existence; and surely if we believe in prayer at all—ami if we believe in God we cannot disbelieve in prayer—now is the time for a repentant and sobered people to surround the Throne of Grace, praying God in His great merry to forgive ns, and in His own love for righteousness to defend the right, and in prayer remember the men who are lighting our battles, ami the battle for freedom for men the world over.''

PATRIOTIC ADDRESSES. VI IIO U LOU 101 "S '■A \ Z ACS.'' At the conclusion of the combined religious service a |iatriotir meeting was held. Mr (!. W. Wood presided in the absence of the Mayor (Mr I). Stewart), from, whom an apology for absence was received. 'Mr A. S. Malcolm, M.l'., also sent an apology for absence. The meeting opened with the singing of the National Anthem.

Three returned soldiers occupied seats on the platform. After a few appropriate introductory remarks 'by the chairman, Mr V. McSkimming (Benhar) delivered a stirring patriotic address in which he made an eloquent appeal to mothers to let their boys go to (ill the places of the fallen and returned "Anzacs." The speaker narrated the history of the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces from the call to duty to the storming of Gallipoli. After reciting "The Charge of the Light Brigade," the speaker stated that with all due respect to that famous charge, made immortal toy the poem, he could say that the Anzacs had by their storming of the heights of Gallipoli, beaten the record and made a glorious name for themselves.

Mr E. llutton also delivered a short address, in which he traced the military history of the Commonwealth and New Zealand. The troops of New Zealand (he said) were not expected to come up to the standard of the British, who had spent at least three years' training, but the New Zealanders had done more than was expected of them, and it was just one year ago that day since the Anzacs wrote their first imperishable page on New Zealand's book of history.

SERVICE AT CLYDEVALE. A commemoration service was held in the Clydevale Hall on An/.ac Day, when a l'limber of residents attended to celebrate the memorable landing of our troops on Gallipoli (writes our own correspondent). The opportunity was also taken to unveil the roll of honour, the honour of doing so being entrusted to Mrs .1. K. .Mitchell, she being one of the earliest settlers in the district. Later on it is intended to erect a more fitting memorial in the shape of a cairn on the top of the hill near the hall for all those who have fallen during the war.

KAITANGATA CELEBRATIONS. Services in commemoration of the landing of our troops on Gallipoli were held in the Church Hall at Kaitangata on Tuesday eveniug (writes our carre* spotulent), when impressive addresses were delivered by Revs, Mci)owall and Perkins and Messrs T, Cairns, Burnard and Stephensou. There was a good attendance. His Worship the Mayor presided. The brass baud led ih the Various hymns*