THE WORLD'S NEED

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 156, 30 December 1940, Page 9

THE WORLD'S NEED

SALVATION FROM SIN

"FIFTH COLUMN" WITHIN

The need to fight the "fifth column" within ourselves and the need for the world to be saved from sin—sin which was the cause of all wars and especially the present one—was stressed by the Bishop of Wellington, the Rt. Rev. H. 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 ■bf the present economic and social order and not merely the outcome of the horrors' of war, Bishop 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. AH down th^ 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. NEED FOR CHANGED HEART. "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 save His people from their sins. What the world needs is a changed heart among the people, and that would 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 realised to the full'and its work be fully achieved. "If His message is allowed to exercise its power, there will b~ 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 guns, the sinking of gallant merchant ships, and the wrecking of factories and great places. There is altogether something • quite untouched by those horrors in the story of this greatest event in the. history of the world, the Babe born in a manger at Bethlehem,"