NOT LENGTH, BUT INTENSITY.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2500, 29 June 1915, Page 2

NOT LENGTH, BUT INTENSITY.

4 "DO YOU WANT TO LIVE FOR , EVER?" A service of intercession in connection with the war was held at St. Paul's Pro-Cathedral on Sunday night. It was conducted by the Rev. A. M. Johnson. The Bishop of Wellington (Dr. Sprott) lead the lesson and pronounced tho benediction. Mr. Johnson preached a striking sermon. He said there were some people for whom the war seemed to have no lesson, and whose great desire was to get through it somehow, in order that they might get back to the old grooves and the old ways. They would be quite content to muddle along as before. Our soldiers were fighting in defence of their country and to defeat the blood-and-iroii policy of Germany, but unless, in addition to the aohiovement of these objects, the war did not also create neiv ideals and a new national conscience, the sacrifices which were being made would be largely in vain. It was not mero length of life, but intensity of lifo that God cared about. The story had been told of a young officer who, when his men showed n momentary inclination to hang back, shouted, ".Men, do you want to livo for ever?" 1 It had the desired effect. Hie men at the front were crowding more life into a day or an hour than was contained in years of ordinarv existence. Quite a_ number of our heroes had done one big thing, and then their lives wero brought to a close. In illustration of this, Mr. Johnson referred to the deeds of those daring aviators Warneford and Moorhouse, and of Captain Doughty Wiley at the Dardanelles. The value of a life was to be appraised by work done, not by the number of years lived. With God. a thousand years were but as yesterday. Mr. Johnson concluded by expressing the hoi>e that the war would result in a new view of life and a deeper sense of the presence of God.