ANGLICAN CHURCH.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 239, 6 September 1940, Page 8

ANGLICAN CHURCH.

SOLEMN INTERCESSION. In view of the call to the people of the Empire to observe Sunday next as a national Day of Prayer, Yen. Archdeacon W. Bullock, Vicar-General of the Wellington Diocese, lias issued the following message to all church people in the diocese:

“Sunday, September S, is the' first Sunday after the close of a year of the present conflict. It has been a year rich in varied experiences—of high hopes, sudden disasters and glorious retrievals. During the first eight months we. were only half aware of the implications of this war, but during the last four months very many turns of fortune have brought to all at once a deep realisation of the ideals for which we struggle and of our dependence for victory upon God. However, we may have shrunk from war, as shrink we did, we now know that what is highest and best for human life cannot be gained without much sacrifice. So far-reaching will be the results of the present conflict that we cannot but feel that the struggle is worthwhile. This war involves many tilings so closely related to our Christian religion that it may almost be called a war for the maintenance of Christian values. Great statesmen like Lord Halifax. Mr Churchill and Mr Roosevelt have not been afraid to state this, and His Majesty the King has now called us to lay our plans and our ideals before God. I feel that we can do this with purity of motive and a clean conscience. And so we can pray together on September 8, as we should do every day, for victory in God’s name over the forces of cruelty, injustice and uutruthfulness. Let us have no hesitation in praying for victory, for it is true that when we talked of peace the enemy made himself ready to battle. Now that our hands are set to a task greater than that of any other age, let us be, in thought and deed as well as in prayer, worthy of the aid that God will give us. We shall pray for our brothers and sisters who are being called upon to suffer often even death itself; and we shall remember those whom, in many lands, war has made hungry or destitute; and we shall pray for our enemies that God may turn their hearts. With our prayers informed by such a spirit, God will make us worthy of the victory He will'give. “In the absence of our Bishop owing to illness, 1 venture to call you to meet together especially for this purpose at the services on Sunday, September 8.”