NATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 12 June 1939, Page 7

NATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS

DEPENDENT ON ONE ANOTHER THE BISHOP S ADDRESS (Received 12th June, 1.10 p.m.) HYDE PARK, 11th June. Their Majesties and President and Mrs Roosevelt heard a sermon urging that their nations “must assume a large share of responsibility for the saving of the world from the ills threatening its well-being,” in the tiny weatherbeaten St. James Anglican Church, which was crowded with parishioners anxious to see Their Majesties—so crowded in fact that several hundreds were forced to stand on the lawn. The Royal party heard the Rt. Rev. Henry Tucker, the presiding Bishop, declare: “We are beginning to realise that nations no less than individuals are dependent on one another so that the welfare of the one is conditional upon that of all.”

The political implications of the Bishop’s statement on the last day of Their Majesties’ visit to the United States served as a climax to the tour, which has been described in some quarters as a friendly response to a friendly invitation, and others as a gesture towards closer diplomatic relations between Britain and America.

The Bishop took as his text Ephesians 4c. 13v., “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the sature of the fulness of Christ.” “At the time of the great crisis the elder Pitt is reported to have said, ‘I know I can save England and no one else can.’ As a result of what he accomplished the nations represented here occupy a position of more than ordinary influence in world affairs,” said the Bishop.