NEED OF THE WORLD

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 81, 30 December 1940, Page 6

NEED OF THE WORLD

Bishop Holland’s Sermon SALVATION FROM SIN What the world needed today was simply to be saved from sin and nothing else—sin that had been the cause of all wars and most truly of the war now raging, said the Bishop of Wellington, Rt. Rev. IL St. Barbe Holland, preaching yesterday morning in St. Matthew’s Church, Brooklyn, There must be in all a longing to be free from selfishness, hatred and selfseeking, the inevitable outcome of the present economic and social order and not merely the outcome of the horrors of war, Bishop of Holland said. This went to the root of everything. The only hope for the world was to drive out sin and wickedness wherever found and nothing could bring this about but the Divine Saviour born on Christmas Day. All down the ages the Saviour had wished to save the people from sin and to set a standard of service for others. All needed to fight against that Fifth Column in themselves, which, working from generation to generation, was blinding men to the best things in life and making them forget the true end of living. “God knows us better than we know ourselves, and that is why He stresses the sins to which we are prone and tries always to save us from our besetting sins,” Bishop Holland said. “Christmas points us to the proclamation that God made One who should have His people from their sins. What the world needs is a changed heart among tlie people, and that wqjild save us from the horrors of war. God wants us to act so as to create a new world, and would use us to extend the Kingdom of the Saviour of the world. But it must begin with us and in ourselves, and so the utter simplicity of the message of Christmas will be realized to the full and its work be fully achieved. “If His message is allowed to exercise its power, there will be an amazing transformation effected in the world in which the powers of evil are attempting to crush the right and all that is good and true. Let us thank God for the true ring of eternity that sounds in Christmas, untouched by the roar of bombs and gnus, the sinking of gallant merchant ships and the wrecking of factories and groat places. There is altogether something quite untouched by those horrors in the story of this greatest event iu the history of the world, the Babe born in a manger at Bethlehem.”