HOUR OF DESTINY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 111, 11 May 1940, Page 10

HOUR OF DESTINY

BRITISH EMPIRE

WAR FOR CHRISTENDOM HAS BEGUN

PLEA BY BISHOP

COMMON TIE OF FAITH

A moving appeal foi work that will help to give the British Commonwealth of Nations the common ties and foundation of the Christian faith was made by the Bishop of Wellington (the Rt. Rev. H. St. Barbe Holland), when speaking at the annual meeting of the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Bible-in-Schools League'last night. His Lordship referred to the invasion of the Lowlands by Germany, and stressed the need for a right training for the future generations who would be the citizens of the free world the Allies were fighting for.

His Lordship referred to the news that Germany had invaded the Lowlands. "That news," he said, "is a great tolling bell telling us that the hour of destiny of the British Empire and Christian civilisation has come, and the war for Christendom has begun, and there will be no stopping till it is over."

After asking those present to rise, the Bishop said they must with utmost gravity commend to God those who were confronting the attack in Holland, Belgium, and Luxemburg, and their own men who were hurrying to their aid.

The world was the scene of a terrible clash of ideas that came from Christ, and a philosophy of life which could only emanate from the jaws of hell so evil was it.

It was only as they saw that great principality of power seeking to bring Christ to the Cross once more that they could realise the significance of Christian education to the people of New Zealand. His Lordship said that he found it difficult to understand the unwillingness of New Zealand to expunge the word "secular" from its educational system. A country's educational system could not fail to reflect each generation's conception, of life, and to: apply its ideals to the future. "It cannot be that those who ■ lead j us in New Zealand conceive a Government that is -*ot based on Christian foundations in view of what unChristian ideals are doing to the world at the present moment," •he said. "Surely we should get back to Christian principles. Can it be possible that to us- in New Zealand God does not matter?" PRIVILEGES APPRECIATED. They did not forget the half-hours they had in the schools, his Lordship added. That was a great privilege, but it did not represent the mind of the nation but the work of the Churches to bring religious education into the national lifjs. .What was-being done in education reflected^ the qualities of the nation. - "As we look at the world we see two great sets of ideals," he said. "On the one hand we have the totalitarian States training the young men up to worship and serve the State; on the other hand is the Christian ideal, an education no less positiye and far more difficult to achieve."

The Christian ideal was to make the young people fit to serve a free society, his Lordship continued. He prayed that a free society would be left when the War was over. .If it was going, to be left they had got to consider how they were going to train its members. The character of.that free society must depend on the character of its citizens. When they had a society that was not compelled to think along one line they had free thought in its truest sense. If they were going to have a, free society, unity, a real fellowship in service and corporate life, that free society had got to have a common faith and objective. He could not conceive a free society where men were free to think for themselves unless they had a common foundation in faith.

That had been the wonderful history of the British Empire, and that was the great cohesion, unity, and fellowship of the great Commonwealth of Nations of the British Empire. The life of the nation must draw its vitality from a common faith.

. Lieutenant-Commissioner J. Evan Smith, of the Salvation Army, also referred to the serious war news which,, he said, overshadowed everything. However, their work was God's work, and they must go on with it. As a new arrival in New Zealand, he was greatly interested in the work of the Bible-in-Schools League. A splendid endeavour had been made to give the children of the country the Word of God, and no education could be complete without that instruction. The league could rely upon him to do all possible to further its objects, and to see that his officers would co-operate with the schoolauthorities.