THE NORTHERN ADVOCATE Registered for transmission through the Post as a Newspaper. SATURDAY JULY'S 5, 1947. The King's Call To Prayer

Northern Advocate, 5 July 1947, Page 6

THE NORTHERN ADVOCATE Registered for transmission through the Post as a Newspaper. SATURDAY JULY'S 5, 1947. The King's Call To Prayer

His Majesty the King has expressed a desire that the people of the British Commonwealth should observe tomorrow as a day of prayer.

This is not the first time our gracious Sovereign has declared publicly his faith in God and invited his people to join with him in offerings of praise and supplication to the Most High. When the clouds hung low. when the light was obscured and darkness overspread the face of Britain in the early days of the war, His Majesty called his people to follow him to cathedral, to humble chapel, or to the privacy of the secret room, eacli according to his own choice and conviction, and there confess their sense of dependence upon God. the only refuge in time of trouble, and implore His guidance in the great struggle in which the nation was engaged. In the hour of victory, when the forces of aggression had been defeated, His Majesty again called his people to join him in thanksgiving to God for a great deliverance. Today, when the hearts of men are troubled as they look into the future, His Majesty has once more invited his people to join him in prayer for Divine aid. In response to the invitation of His Majesty the King, all churches throughout the Commonwealth will observe tomorrow as a day of prayer.

The opportunity thus afforded people publicly to confess their faith in God and their dependence upon Him is indeed something which should be cherished by Christian people.

It should be translated into fervent prayer for Divine guidance of the leaders of all nations who have been chosen for the task of laying a firm foundation for peace.

To that end a clamant need exists for prayer that the minds of these leaders, and of mankind in general, should be lifted above the mists of suspicion and hatred into the pure light of mutual trust and goodwill. Suspicion and distrust constitute the greatest human agencies in the world’s unrest and danger today, and the tragedy of this state of affairs is that it is one of the fruits of disregarding the Divine laws, particularly that which requires men —and nations—to do unto others as they would have others do unto them, in other words to love their neighbours as themselves. The Psalmist, when discussing the virtue of God's blessing upon those

who fulfilled His law in this and every other respect, declared Divine truth when he sang: “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it; except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.’’

His Majesty King George, giving humble assent to this fundamental truth, and devoutly believing in the power of prayer, has invited his people to join him tomorrow in public supplication that Almighty God may guide the nations into the path of righteousness which alone can lead to world peace. “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of,” said Tennyson, who declared that men were little better than sheep or goats if, believing in God, they did not lift their hands in prayer on behalf of their friends.

The same thought moved Whittier to illustrate Ihe power of prayer to remove fear and unrest when he related an old legend concerning a garrison which manned a fort at Cape Ann, on the American coast, in the early days of colonisation. The soldiers were terrified every night by sounds of Indian war cries and marching feet. Volleys were fired at the attackers, but without effect, until the ghostly experience unnerved even the most hardened of the company. At last, one night, when the garrison was moved to breaking point, the commander ordered his men to lay aside their arms and engage with him in prayer.

This they did, and the ghostly visitors, with despairing yells, vanished, never to reappear. Only a legend, wrote the poet, but the lesson he drew from it was summed up in words which may be appropriately quoted today, when His Majesty the King has called his people to go upon their knees at a time when fears are in the way:

“Soon or late, to all our dwellings. Come the spectres of the mind— Doubts and fears and di - ead forebodings In the darkness undefined. Round us spring the grim projections Of the heart and of the brain, And our pride of strength is weakness. And the cunning hand is vain. In the dark we cry like children, And no answer from on high Breaks the crystal spheres of silence, And no white wings downward fly; But the heavenly help we pray for • Comes to faith, and not to sight, And our prayers themselves drive backward All the spirits of the night.”