DAY OF PRAYER

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20655, 8 September 1941, Page 5

DAY OF PRAYER

BRITAIN’S UNITY IMPRESSIVE MESSAGES REMEMBRANCE OF RUSSIA (Elec. Tel. Copyright— United Press Assn.) (Reed. Sept. 8. 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, Sept. 7. The churches were more crowded than usual on the national day of prayer. The address by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Cosmo Lang, was broadcast. He said that only now did we realise the greatness ol' the deliverance when last year's Battle oh Britain was won by the valour of our air forces. He asked for remembrance in their thoughts and prayers of Russia’s armies in their fierce ordeal, her workers and her peasants driven from the soil and from their homes they loved and also all the oppressed nations. Dr. Lang said there could be no compromise—indeed, no neutrality—between the conception of man’s dignity for which the Allies were fighting and the Nazi conception that the State is all powerful, acknowledging no right but its own weight. “We must see in this tremendous conflict nothing less than a struggle between these two wholly opposite conceptions of the meaning and purpose of man’s life, - ’ he said. One is that man in the child of God, created in His Father’s image and responsible to his Creator. To meet this responsibility, he must have freedom of thought, speech, and worship and opportunity to develop his whole personality. He is bound to claim truth, mercy and justice between man and man. Nazi Doctrine "Under the Nazi doctrine, if truth, mercy, justice and freedom stand in the way of the all powerful State, claiming to be the instrument of a superior race extending away over che world, they must give place to it. We see these principles thrust aside and trampled underfoot throughout Europe by the armed force of the German State. But the deepest need of man is not a vindication of his rights but a redemption of his sins. Only the Christian Gospel holds out the hope of redemption.” “If racial* pride and selfish utilitarianism are allowed to defeat the aims of the present struggle,” said Cardinal Hinsley, Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, in a broadcast on the occasion of the national day of prayer, “then, as in 1918, we shall gain only a respite from wars. Christ will not let us have peace at any price. The true peace for which we pray is the peace which is promised to men of good will.” Cardinal Hinsley, while endorsing the aims declared by Mr. Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt, including freedom from fear, said: “There is another fear which we must pray God to instil into our hearts. The heart of man stands in need of fear —the fear of losing God’s love. From this fear comes the fulfilment at the law and, herein lies that essential security which human contrivance by itself is unable to guarantee for he happiness of mankind. We are being tried in fire.” Cruelty in Poland Cardinal Hinsley asked particularly for prayers for Poland. “Never was a people so mercilessly treated by a cruel invader. Poland has now concluded a pact with the Russian people in order that her sons and especially young girls may be delivered from a slavery more awful than death. Russia has been guilty of great wrongs to others and Poland also, but peoples whose rulers do wrong do not forfeit all their own rights. We pray the defence of Russia’s rights may help repair Poland’s unmerited wrongs.” The Archbishop of Armagh, the Roman Catholic Primate of all Ireland, Cardinal Macßory, in a broadcast, said the people of the church of Ireland would gladly join with fellow Christians of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in the observance of the day of national prayer. “We are thus enabled to show our close partnership with you in the deepest and most vital realities of national life,” said Cardinal Macßory. “We share your belief that the existence of all that is worth living for as a people, is threatened by the designs of the enemy. United are our prayers with yours that' God will give us and our Allies courage to endure whatever further sufferings and losses that await us, and strength to go forward without flinching.”