Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, DEC. 24, 1942 CHRISTMASTIDE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXIII, Issue 22, 24 December 1942, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, DEC. 24, 1942 CHRISTMASTIDE.

"With an inheritance of joy the world again greets a wartime Christmas. It is not joy unalloyed, but for the Allies it takes on added meaning as a Christian festival, for it sees great progress against those very forces which would destroy tliii L freedom for Christian worship which is part of the inheritance. The Allied cause—the Christian cause against paganism—prospers ; and in the commemoration of the great Event of Bethlehem there will be a deep note of thanksgiving, though there is the knowledge, too, that much more needs to be done in completing the task to which the Allies have set their hands. Christmas in wartime is not strange, however incongruous; such a condition has existed throughout the i ages, and in the lifetime of; many people of to-day, before the present conflict. Historians j have related that man was born to conflict; indeed,, in the story of the coming of Christmas this' is told. Long before the Beth-1 lehem idyll there was a pagan I annual festival at this time. ! People of the Old World in; the Northern Hemisphere j marked the winter solstice | with a defiant jollity that had a grim background. "Their husbanded stores of food were { diminishing, the icy hand of! winter gripped them, imrelent- : ing," it has been written. Yet in hope born of experience, they trusted to coming harvests and with a brave recklessness spread the feast with what remained and made merry. Theirs was a feast of defiance. Christ came into a world of men in sore need of regeneration; ami the Ancient Church lifted the seasonal gaiety into a spiritual setting in commemoration of His birth as a rising sun upon a drear prospect. There have ever been clashes between good and evil. To-day are to be seen

the forces of good again rising, slowly perhaps, but none the less surely, in triumph over a starkly material creed expressed in violence to truth and in brutal - over-riding of justice and mercy. The present Christmastide should come as a rallying of Christian forces —in every walk of life where good can be served—to uphold Christianity against the Nazi plan to enslave. There is much to be grateful for in this commemoration—not only because of the Light which dawned on the world nearly two thousand years ago—but because of the reward of our simple faith in recent months. That reward lias come hot merely by increased strength of arms. Had it not been so, who can say that the cause of freedom would not ere now have suffered a disastrous defeat ? Peace on earth will be brought by men of good will —those valiant hearts now marching forward against the pagans, and those who have already made the supreme sacrifice. In marking the festival

there will be thanksgiving, renewed hope and deeper faith in the crusade, with a pledge to bring still closer the victory. The "Manawatu Standard" wishes its readers "A Merry Christmas and A Prosperous New Year.''