ARMISTICE SUNDAY

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 288, 9 November 1925, Page 11

ARMISTICE SUNDAY

COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES,

AT CUBA. STREET CHURCH,

Armistice Day services were held in tho Cuba Street Methodist Church yesterday when the roll of honour was surmounted by a beautiful floral cross, the gift of Mr A. J. Shailer. Miss Nellie Killick sang “He wipes the Tear,” and the choir rendered Stainer’s ‘‘Deliver Mo 0 Lord.” The Rev. Harold T. Peat’s theme in the morning was ‘‘The Festival of Silence,” and in the evening “The Vision of a Warless World.”

In the course of his morning discourse the preacher said: “This is Armistice Sunday. What a host of bitter-sweet memories come thronging as wo repeat that word, ‘Armistice. This week is, or should be, a holy week. The return of the Sabbath quiet has special unction on this day, when mind and soul love to dwell on the memory of that first Armistice L’ay —a day of poignant memories. The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, when the ‘cease fire’ sounded over .the battlefields of death. Then the tumult and the shouting died, the captains and the kings departed. Tho roar of cannon, the rattle of machine guns, and the shouts of men who fight, gave place to a quiet calm as the planes of war returned to earth.”

During many years the world’s mind had been diseased, this was the first evidence of returning sanity. Men, accustomed to stoop in the trenches in obedience to the command, “keep your | head down,” now stand upright, and ; foe greets foo across no man’s land. Was it not a miraclo that a world in arms shduld so suddenly cease to fight ? Through the weary blood-stained years the titanic struggle had continued to gratify the insatiable thirst of the god of war. Tho bugles which called us to fight now bade us cease, while tho nations assembled around the conference table. The question leaps unbidden: “Why did they not settle it thus years ago before war spread red ruin through the land, and multitudes now dead were living in peace and quiet P With chilling intensity comes the answer from the Prince “Ye would not; Ye would not.” Through long centuries the Christ had offered the moral equivalent for war, that is to kill out all pergonal evil in our own lives, rather tlufn to kill one another, and with the call Christ offers the power to give effect to that purpose. Ho had urged men to accept Him, to believe His word, to take His view of life—the view of international brotherhood. But hate and suspicion made deaf our ears and jealousy had its evil way. The world’s mind had become diseased, suffering from the malady of wrong ideas. Those wrong ideas had' at last reached-; tho motor tracks to the world’s brain; nations hurled themselves in fury into the melting pot, and souls wore flung white hot into eternity. Amid all these memories, so poignant in their intensity, the heart can hardly analyse its own emotions. “There are many to whom the memory of Armistice Day must always bring back a rush of anguish because some dear one is not present in the flesh to share the joy of even a partial peace.” continued the speaker. “It was very fitting, therefore, that the royal proclamation should bid the Empire keep silence for a brief space on Armistice Day. It is a sad silence yet withal a joyous one. Not empty hilarious joy. but a bitter-sweet joy that recalls deeds that lustre the family name,- because of tho great sacrifice for humanity. So we dare to speak of it as the festival of silence. In this festival of silence the soul enters the inner sanctuary, and in the sacred silence a larger life reveals itself. Silence is the element in which great thoughts fashion themselves, in the silence too they emerge full-formed and majestic into tho daylight of life to hold sway over the lives of men. We are apt to lose ourselves in the incessant noises of to-day. The society of the present has but a small place for silence. If anyone doubts this lot him enter a drawing-room on an ‘afternoon at home.’ Silence appears to be regarded as tho invisible enemy to be kept at bay at all costs. The things that matter most cannot be fully vocal except in the silence.. Silence is the great test of friendship; it is then the soul has opportunity for communion. “Around our planet on Wednesday next a continuous wave of silence will have its way, a silenco more eloquent of grief and glory than the speech of tho greatest orators. It -is the mute expression of the sorrow of a great people for their honoured dead. In those moments of silence let us renew our vows to God, and may wo join with Lincoln in the immortal words be uttered when dedicating tho warcemetery at Gettysburg: “Let us highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” AT StTT^L’S. Reference to Armistice Day was made at St. Paul’s Methodist Church yesterday by Rev. M. A. Rugby Pratt, who paid tribute to thoso who had not returned and referred to tho significance of tho day in relation to tho ideal of a ■ warless world. A magnificent wreath, the gift of Mr and Mrs A. ,T. Shailer, of Scandia street, two members of the congregation, was placed above tho'brass mural tablet containing tho names of members of the church-who served ir. the Great War. Thanks' for the gift were expressed by Mr Pratt.