A DAY OF INTERCESSION

New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24369, 3 September 1942, Page 2

A DAY OF INTERCESSION

His Majesty's request that to-day should be set apart for special intercession throughout the British Dominions lifts our cause and everything for which we are fighting to their true spiritual stature and significance. A day of prayer is not a] frantic attempt on our part to enlist on our side the might of a reluctant Deity. Rather is it an offering of ourselves, all we have and are, in supreme dedication to the ends which our Christian faith teaches us are nearest to the heart and mind of God. Christ came to establish His kingdom upon the earth. His kingdom is love, and goodwill, and truth, and honour, and justice. It stands for the essential worth of man. Our own days have seen the powers of darkness hurl theii strongest challenge against everything for which Christ lived and died. And as the Divine has elected to work through human agents, on the Allied nations have been placed the responsibility and privilege of meeting evil face to face and driving it from its seat of power. Perhaps for very end our Empire has been forged in the furnace of its long and troubled history. Only as we see this desperate conflict as primarily spiritual, and not merely a clash of material forces, can we tap those resources of character and purpose that in the end will bring us the victory. If we should fail, and in a God-ruled world we can only fail through lack of complete consecration, all that the questing spirit of man has won through long centuries

of upward struggle will be thrown j back into the abyss. Never since 1 history began has man been given a cause more worthy the crusading s zeal of all who love truth and hate j a lie. As a crusade of light against j I darkness, of justice against djs- j j honour, of love against hate, of the j I Kingdom of Righteousness against; | the powers of evil, this last and most j | terrible of wars, with the incredible) j sacrifices it inevitably demands, will j clear the way for a better world than ' ! man has ever known. That we might ; j be worthy of so high a task and s-oj j rich a destiny for mankind, we dedi- j j cate ourselves on this Day of Prayer. | i ~~~ ' 1