CALL TO DUTY.

Kaikoura Star, Volume LXII, Issue 23, 23 March 1942, Page 1

CALL TO DUTY.

LEADERS URGED TO ACT. A stirring appeal that in the present time of emergency the rulers of the nation should try by every means they can to remove some of the temptations and opportunities for evil that lay before men was made by the Bishop of Wellington (the Rt. Rev. H. St. Barbe Holland), when addressing a combined branch meeting of members of the ‘Church of England Men’s Society last week. Recalling th? speech delivered by Mr Churchill after the fall of France in which he called upon the people of Britain so to act that men in years to come would say of them, “This -was their finest hour,” his lordship said they knew perfectly well how through the succeeding months Britain had proved to the hilt that by her heroism and rock-like courage it had been the finest hour of her history.

CALL COME TO NEW ZEALAND. Now, it seemed to him, the call had come to New Zealand. Since December 7 the Battle of the Pacific had proved to be just one disaster after another, that they wore getting almost inured to hearing of the collapse of some fresh piece of the great bastion which stretched between us and the arrogant aggression of Japan. It seemed to him that quite definitely, the question had arisen whether we were so going to bear ourselves in this critical and decisive moment in the history of the New Zealand nation that men would say of us that this was our finest hour. Those tendencies to doubt, the defeatism which had been evident among many people in the country,must be banished if they were going to be worthy of Mr Churchill’s statement. People said we were a small nation, but that made no difference. Other small nations (Greece and Yugoslavia) had been put to the test and they had not been found wanting. In one "moment of great decision Yugoslavia had

changed her Government and by so doing, though utterly unprepared for self-defence, had won her soul and lost everything else.

“ NOT OUR SAFETY BUT OUR SOUL. ’ ’ "To day we ought to realise, if we are thoughtful men and women, that it is not our safety but our soul that is really at stake,” his lordship said. As someone had said in England, only a dedicated nation, willing to put everything on the altar, was sufficient for this day of crisis. Speaking of the workers in the E.P.S., the Home Guard and the various women’s war service organisations, his lordship said there was a dedicated bit of the nation, but, he asked, what about the other bit?

“That is what I am worried about now,” he went on. They all knew of the saying “Nero fiddling while Rome is burning,” but were they quite sanguine that there were not signs of that same levity in the nation of New Zealand? Surely there were moments of such crisis that the facts must be faced and the truth spoken by whoever was called upon to do it. NO NEED FOR GLOOM. When he spoke of signs of levity, which seemed to suggest that something drastic was needed within the soul of the nation, he did not mean that they were all to plunge into gloom and solemnity. Britain in her great hour of trial won through largely by her inexhaustible fund of humour. “We know,” Bishop Holland proceeded, “that the man who can make a dozen men laugh is worth any amount of sanctimonious prayers today. ’ ’ He did not say it was necessary for the man who was to be at his best for the nation to have his time for rest and recreation denied him: that would be absurd.

“But I do say when Sir Stafford Cripps summoned the British nation the other day in the face of the whole world situation to a more austere mode of living, he did what we know he had a perfect right to do, and what our leaders here have a perfect right to demand of us all, and I wish to God they would do it. TIME TO BE UP AND DOING. “Now, in the face of that, when one realises the frivolities and worse things that are going on before our eyes and hindering the development of a really great national stamina and national morale, one begins to feel it is time someone was up and doing. Surely, in the face of what we have heard already of the appalling horror perpetrated by men blind with lust and cruelty at Hong Kong, we. cannot suggest that unbridled self-indulgence on our part here is proper preparation to meet a foe like that. That seems to be

simply a case of the pot and the kettle. You all agree that in a time of national emergency our rulers should try by every means they can to remove some of the opportunities and temptations to evil that lie before

men. ’ ’ War unleased the animal within individuals, and though no one would suggest limiting freedom, one did sug gest that measures should be taken to prevent those in whom the animal had been unleashed from venting their passions in an unbridled manner. In a special emergency he believed special measures were necessary. Bishop Holland then proceeded to speak of the coining Campaign for Christian Order in New Zealand. His remarks proved very inspiring to the large gathering, over which the Rev. F. M. Kempthorne presided. The meeting was preceded by evensong in St. Peter’s Church, conducted by the Rev. C. L. Dodds.