PERSECUTED RACE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23134, 5 September 1938, Page 12

PERSECUTED RACE

PLIGHT OF THE JEWS SYMPATHY OF CHURCHES TRAGIC HISTORY REVIEWED Deep sympathy with the plight of the Jews in many lands at the present time is being manifested by various sections of the Christian Church, and, at the invitation of the vicar of St. Matthew's and the chairman of the Council of Christian Congregations, a united service of intercession for .Jewish sufferers throughout the world will be held in St. Matthew's Church next Thursday evening. In a number of churches yesterday reference was made to tho sufferings oi the Jews and intercession was offered for them. Speaking at St. David's Presbyterian Church yesterday morning on the glory and the tragedy of the heritage of Israel, the Ucv. \V. Bower Black quoted the words which he thought the most, dreadful in all literature, "His blood be on us and on our children." Complicated as the situation was. he said, it was (|Uite certain that, apart from the Bible, there could bo no possible explanation of lhe history of the Jews. Homeless Nomads The pathos of history reached its very climax in the distress of that hapless and homeless people. Because they "knew not the day of their visitation" tbey had becomo homeless nomads through the centuries We were witnessing again to-day, the preacher said, a bitter crisis in the story of the Jewish people. Something like tidal waves were sweeping over them with ever-increasing force. There were Jour main sources of the hatred of the Jews. The first was religious hostility by Christians, which began in the early persecutions of tho Christians by the Jews. The second was economic hostility, due to the financial shrewdness and power of tho Jew. The third was the cleavage in social customs and standards of living, and the fourth was the claim of the totalitarian State. This last was probably the main cause of their sufferings in Germany and Italy to-day.

The Heritage of Israel The heritage of Israel was, indeed, a most remarkable one. No other nation was equipped so marvellously both to grasp and to teach the further knowledge of God that was in Jesus, but thev crucified Him because lie took what the Jews had come to look upon as their own national treasure and made it a world heritage. E\ or since they had been reaping the inevitable consequences of their bitter and determined opposition to tho will of God. The Church now was the instrument of God —not Jew nor Gentile nor any other race, but the Christian Church was the fulfilment of tho glorious destiny. the onlv destiny of the great race which took its beginning in Abraham and which had its ending and its crown in Jesus Christ.