HARVEST FESTIVAL

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 61, 12 March 1936, Page 19

HARVEST FESTIVAL

WELLINGTON GIRLS'

COLLEGE

SPLENDID 'DISPLAY

Quite a number of the sick and the poor of Wellington will benefit by the goodly collection of wholesome foodstuffs which was • displayed at the annual harvest festival held yesterday at the Wellington Girls' College. On the wide stalje in the assembly hall there were two long tiered tables, and on these and all along the footlights there were stacked all manner of edibles, Huge pumpkins and cabbages, and other vegetables, fruit, . eggs, groceries, an enormous home-made cottage loaf, home-made jams, and innumerable other good things. They made an impressive as well as quite a beautiful still-life picture, with sheaves of ripe wheat tied with . red ribbon surrounding them, and covies of carrots suspended overhead. All these things had been. given by the members of

the school's Junior Red Cross Circle and the Students' Christian Union Circle to be sent after the festival to the Red Cross to be distributed by them to those in need.

In the lunch hour the hall was filled with pupils and a thanksgiving service was conducted by Miss Greig, the principal, who asked the girls to think during' the service of those less fortunate than themselves, remembering especially those in the South Island whose harvests had been destroyed. The service was attended by Miss Kershaw (president of the Students' Christian 'Union Circle), Mrs. Taylor (president of the Junior Red Cross Circle), Captain Galloway (Red Cross Society), and Miss McLaren (Students' Christian Movement).

Captain Galloway, oh behalf of the Red Cross Society, expressed appreciation of the collection of gifts. He impressed upon his young audience the comfort of their religious beliefs, which he described as the most priceless gift anyone could have. In these days he noticed a far broader tolerance as far as religious beliefs were concerned, and had been impressed to hear some boys.in a tram discussing, without self-consciousness, a Bible class camp at Waikanae. Young people these days, he said, were not afraid to profess their beliefs, and he urged the pupils "to stand in a rugged, strong, open-hearted way fast by things that matter." He was glad to find both the Students' Christian Union and the Junior Red Cross so closely identified in the harvest festival, and he assured them that the gifts would go to people very much in need of them. Miss Kershaw said she felt the harvest festival combined the.two important rules of real Christianity—to look upward and outward; upward in thanksgiving to God, and outward to ; wards one's fellowmen who were not so fortunate as ourselves.

Miss McLaren said that at the University the Students' Christian Movement felt that they could always rely on the Wellington Girls! College to do their part, and that when some of the pupils went on to the University they would find in. the Students' Christian Movement a great .fellowship they could not do without. > ■■■'