CHALLENGING TIMES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 169, 17 June 1940, Page 6

CHALLENGING TIMES

EVIL OF HITLERISM. THREAT TO LIFE. “I think this moment is one of the greatest and fiercest emergencies with which the Christian Faith lias ever been confronted. Those ot us who speak from pulpits m these momentous weeks are full of a deep sense of responsibility concerning the message .which God would have us deliver. The loe which is langed against the heart of France carries the banner of anti-Christ. 1 am persuaded 1 can say that, it l challenging what you and I acknowledge to be the finest ai noblest things in life. In these terms the Bishop_of Y lington (Rt. Rev. ,H. Holland), preaching to a very ' large congregation in All Saints’ Church , last evening, during one of the most lmpie - sive services- that. lias ever been conducted within ,its walls, alluded rto the immense principles with which the Em pire is confronted in waging the war against Hitlerism, In the most profound terms, His Lordship drew a picture ot the crisis into which the nation ana the Church had been thrown, exhorting the people to rise to the occasion. “The enemy is making a desperate attempt to overthrow the Kingdom or God,” declared the Bishop. ‘.That is what the Christian -Democracies are facing to-day. It is not a mystic ot Imperialism—but the powers of evil belched forth, determined to crush and level out all that Christ stands for. Night after night and day after day their hearts were full when they thought of the courage of their great Allv, France, fighting bn day alter day, with no sleep and with no halt, tortured’hut" not defeated. Every heart was stirred in remembrance of the millions of refugees with nothing in the world but the clothes they stood up in, toiling along tlie highways of France, desolate and wounded, and falling by the wayside. “With anguish we think of those who have been left in Paris during these past two days and nights,” added His Lordship. We dare not think of the sorrows of the fathers and mothers, but we remember the soul-stirring words of the Prime Minister of France, speaking as the voice of the nation. We have need, indeed, to pray ' for the grace of God to meet the needs of France in the present moment, knowing His love and care are with them as they are with us.” TRANSIENT—AND LASTING. Bishop Holland reminded his congregation that the text of his address was particularly appropriate, lor the words had been spoken by Isaiah at just such a crucial period. Recorded in Isaiah 30, 15, they were: “For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength. . . .” The Jewish people had been confronted by the Assyrian hordes when the leadership had been taken by Isaiah, offering an alternative —a return to God. To-day it was true that God was the single constant, the one unchanging, immutable thing in the present-day cauldron when truth and faithfulness were so much needed. Whoever stood true to his principles and failed to compromise built on a rock. “Hitlers and Berlins will pass away, declared Bishop Holland, .“but those who base their lives upon God,. ; , even though they die as • a result of a great and-massive conviction, will be heirs with Christ. On the other side lie the final defeats—God grant we may not have any defeatism of this sort in the Christian Church. There is a need to return to those words on Isaiah’s lips if we are to appreciate the challenge and the call to right-about-turn.” . THE VICTORIAN ERA. “At the end of last century there was everywhere an atmosphere that absolute prosperity and security surrounded the British Empire—there was nothing else we would think counted,” continued His Lordship. There had been a sort of feeling abroad that the Empire was painting the whole world red, and the Bishop recalled how he used to trace on a maj) of Africa the steady progress of British rule on that continent as the red spread further over the area. “It is an extraordinary thing to look back on to-day,” remarked the Bishop. “That was the period of the triumphs of Liberalism. The two Chief ingredients were the rapid and widespread development of education and the advances made .by science. We were solidly convinced that these dual lights were a sure basis for a prosperous world. But God was slipping second and third' places' in life, and was no longer central Christianity and religion were an amiable luxury for those who oared for that sort of thing, but they were never a matter of life and death. “I think that is a very true picture of the halcyon days of. the er.d of the Victorian era—and it fills us with regret for what might have been. It might have been so different—a difference that might have saved the world from its appalling experience. We have seen now that .with tlie overthrow of God comes the collapse of the ethical and moral standards of .life- —truth, mercy, the value of human life, and respect for personality. Four great principles of Christian society crashed—those four things were given to us by the Incarnation. In a great part of the Christian world they have slipped out of sight. : '■ " “If : the present atrocities are over to be brought to an end we need to experience a re-entliromnent of God in the human life. He does not sit on the Woolsack, directing the affairs of the world from there—the only Throne of God is in the hearts of men and women. He reigns there or not at all,” averred the Bishop. During the service Bishop Holland led-the congregation in special prayers for the leaders': and forces of the Empire and France, and both the “Marseillaise” and the National Antheta were sung at the conclusion of a most impressive period of worship in which the Allied cause was uppermost: