EMPIRE DAY SERVICE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 25 May 1915, Page 4

EMPIRE DAY SERVICE.

The Empire Day service held at St. Mary's Ciiurch, Hawera, on Monday evening was most impressive. Most fittingly it combined the features of a commemoration of the great and good Queen Victoria and a memorial to the brave who had fallen in the great Avar. The ser.vice commenced with the singing of the National Anthem and then part of the usual Evening Service was read by tne vicar, Rev. C- H. GrantCowen, the Canticles and responses being sung by the choir. The vicar preached a very fine sermon on the words of John xiii., 15: "Greater love hath no ni£>n than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Afterreferring to the primary reason for keeping Empire Day, in memory of the good Queen Victoria, he sketched briefly the wonderful extension of the great British Empire. The responsibilities of Empire naturally demands sacrifice and therefore, said .the preacher, our sons go out to fight, while mothers, fathers and wives do their part by giving up their loved ones to serve the cause of God and light—it is their privilege to bear the same sorrow as their loved ones, it is their coronation. Some say that the future of the Empire is to be that of Greece, of Rome and of Babylon, "which had their day and ceased to be." Others that there is a more glorious future awaiting the Empire, but, said the preacher, the future, is in o^ir own hands. If we negrlect Christ's injunction to preach the Gosped to all nations, those millions over whom the Empire holds sway will be taken from our charge. The future defends on the way we trust and have faith in God, looking forward to the greater kingdom prepared for all. At t^e conclusion of tTie service the Dead March in Saul was played by the organist, Mrs King, the congregation standing while it was being played.