OUTSTANDING CHARACTERISTIC OF THE KING

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIX, 27 January 1936, Page 7

OUTSTANDING CHARACTERISTIC OF THE KING

“BECAUSE HE LOVED GOD HE LOVED HIS PEOPLE”

SERVICE AT NELSON CATHEDRAL

The service at the Cathedral yesterday morning was conducted by the Dean, the Very Rev. P. B. Haggitt, while the sermon was preached by the Bishop of Nelson, the Rt. Rev. W. G. Hilliard.

The Cathedral was crowded to the doors, the congregation including the Mayor, Dir G. L. Page, City'Councillors and' the Town Clerk, the Nelson, Stoke and Richmond sections of the Nelson, Marlborough. West Coast Regiment who paraded under Lieut.-Colonel W. C. Harley, returned soldiers, the St. John Ambulance Brigade and Nursing Division, and members of the Legion of Frontiersmen.

The Bishop said he appreciated the presence of the City Fathers, the representatives of His Majesty’s defence forces, and other organisations represented. The text for the sermon was the Corinthians 0, 19-20: “What? know ye not that your body is tlie temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in ybur body, and in your spirit, which arc God’s.” “We meet together this morning not only for the general purpose which calls tlie faithful together Sunday by Sunday but’also that in the august and awful presence of tlie King of Kings we might .remember and meditate upon the life of him who was our earthy sovereign, our widely revered and "greatly beloved King George V,” said the. Bishop. It was appropriate that' they should thus gather together, for the late King’s outstanding .characteristic was that he was a religious man. It was because he loved God 'so much that he loved his people so much. It was the basis of the. noble structure of his magnificent character. The King was diligent in his attendance at divine worship, said the speaker, and they knew also how His Majesty loved his Bible:

There was no need to dwell upon his splendid achievements, nor the details of the great rifevents of his illustrious reign. Suffice jit. to say that Tiis reign marked an epoch in the history of the World, that lie bore himself in days of ' (.articular difficulty with a steadfastness that had: iriade his name one to be long remembered. Hi.s life was a life devoted to a definite purpose, the motive of duty. His people i'shpt)hl;jshpw tlieir appreciation by rallying round tlie young King and following lii's iegd as lie set out a difficult task/ Too often their lives were governed by tlie principle, “I like, I want, I desire/’ when they ought to be governed, as the late King’s life was •governed, by “I ought,” following in the footsteps of Him, tlie greatest personality of all time, who came not to be ministered unto but to give His life a ransom for many. They had a duty to tlie world and to tlieir country, and that duty ought to be the dominating driving force of- tlieir lives. Above all they had a duty to God, which duty was primary, in the late King's life, and yet it "was the duty which tlie average man so seldom stopped to think about.