Where Peace Reigns

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22402, 24 April 1936, Page 8 (Supplement)

Where Peace Reigns

Y i |t| H , A FOREST SANCTUARY || I [ DEAR BOYS AND GIRLS,— j J P = IT is many years since Anzac Day fell on a Saturday, and it is fitting B U| that our pages to-day should reflect the significance of great g / I 1 anniversary. In one of our illustrations you will tiee something of jj £1 K| scenes familiar to our New Zealand soldiers twenty-Dne years ago in |C/ r\ = Egypt. In the other you will look upon the beautiful monument that is gto R I New Zealand's enduring tribute to the memory of those who so soon | 1 V 1 were to die at Anzac, and all those others who gave their lives on the «1 battlefields of France, Palestine and other areas of war. | J p 1 From these reminders of the dark days of war it is good to be able H = to turn to the illustration above, showing the beautiful window-picture | 1 Y | of the church of St. James at the Franz Josef Glacier. I spent two wjj weeks of my recent holiday at Franz Josef, and almost every day, early =1 ri in the morning, or at sunset, I' stole away to the little church in the |AJ forest for just a few momenta to look out on the majestic panorama =\j y 1 of mountain and glacier framed by that beautiful altar window. It was n | always so peacefuj and quiet in the church that the busy world, with |*j all its' noise and confusion, iiecmed to belong to another existence. |i\ 0! There within those sacred walls the only sound was; the song of the |£J y i river, ,flowing swiftly down from the glacier and the anvil-notes of n| bellbirds in the forest outside. |X ri On Sunday evenings there was a service, attended by the guests at | k I}! the hotel, and taken by two young guides who have been ordained as |£j y | lay-readers so that they might perform this act of devotion Sunday by Ml Sunday. The church is thus kept open, for the vicar of South Westland 5 1 has the largest parish in New Zealand to look after and pays a visit t° | I n| Waiho only once a month. it) V 1 The memory of the little church and of the evening services is one | J V 1 that many others, like myself, will always treasure as something 51 different, something precious, in their sheaf of holiday recollections. | I nf On Anzac Day, they stand out as a reminder of the promise of eternal |W y 2 peace, of life that goes on and on in spite of war and death, of the J j#! beauty of holiness and the jjs\ n | holiness of beauty, as symbolised fa | 1 £ | by the Cross uplifted there in yl that little sanctuary in a West§1 | sjiiinMiniiiMniHiiiiniininiiimniWiTiinniiiiiiiiHiiiHHiiHMniiiiiiiiiNMiiiHiiiiiiiiiiiniiinHHiiiiiiiiiiiiiiMinMiiiiiwNnin^iiiiiiiiiiMiiiiMiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.- y