KNOX CHURCH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22790, 27 January 1936, Page 6

KNOX CHURCH

"AS HE THAT SERVETH ” An impressive memorial service, which was largely attended, was conducted at Knox Church yesterday morning by the Rev. R. R. Grant Sutherland, a minister of the Church of Scotland, who is at present on a visit to New Zealand and has occupied the Knox Church pulpit during the past month. Portions of the organ, pulpit, and communion table were suitably draped for the occasion, and the effectiveness of the drapinga was enhanced by flowers which had been tastefully arranged. Mr Sutherland preached from the text “ I am among you as he that serveth.” ' “ One would almost suppose that by this time everything had been written and spoken that could be by way of tribute to the late beloved Monarch of the British Empire,” he said, “ but you will expect me —and I would not wish it otherwise — to say something from this historic pulpit on this occasion of your first meeting for worship since the Empire was plunged into mourning by his death and to pay, in your name and on your behalf ns the congregation of Knox Church, a tribute of respect and affection for him who for the last 26 years has been our King. I have chosen as my text the same as that from which Dr Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury, then Arcnbishop of York, spoke at the King’s coronation. * I am among you as he that serveth,’ or, as Dr Moffat translates it, even more simply, ‘ I am among you as a servant.’ No apter words could be found to describe the King’s 'life. All his life he was a servant of his people, and found his happiness in their service, and nothing gave him such joy as to discover, what in his modesty he had not apparently realised, on his silver jubilee day, how much his people loved him. I shall never forget the tremor in his voice as he spoke his memorable broadcast on the evening of that day. It is a truism to cay that the House ot Windsor was the only royal house in Europe that came through the war in a stronger position than it went into it, and for that the late King was responsible. In the days of Queen Victoria the monarchy was accepted by the bulk of the British people as a more or less divine institution for their government. But it cculd hardly be said that there was much enthusiasm for the throne. The throne was too distant from the lives of the people. With King Edward VII a change began to work. The theory of the divine right of kings had come under severe fire, and was little set store by. Ihere was a general feeling that the days of monarchy were nearing their end. As a boy I can recollect the prophecy being made that it had not many years to run. But as it has turned out they .were quite wrong who thus prophesied. King Edward began the process, which King George carried on with conspicuous success, of ranking the monarchy beloved instead of accepted,” continued the preacher. “It is a matter of common knowledge to us how he began to do what probably his grandmother would never have approved—went out and in among his people, not as a King on the old lines, a distant tyrant, but as a servant of the people. Ably supported by his wife and sons he did so nil his reigning life, with the result we know, that while to-day we will have nothing to do with the idea of the divine right, of kings, we recognise the British monarchy as the best form of government for us, as a system of government that works well and that is likely to work well so long as we are blessed with a King like George the Fifth or like his son whom the whole Empire knows as the Prince of Wales, but must now think of ns Edward the Eighth. And especially do we British people cling to the monarchy—as the bond of union between the nations of the British Commonwealth. Ido not speak of the influence of the Crown in attracting the loyalty of the Indian peoples and the other coloured races of the Empire, although that influence is very great, and in the nature of things could not be exercised by any other form of government. lam thinking just now of the beautiful loyalty of the self-governing dominions, such as New Zealand. 1 first came in contact with it on shipboard, when I observed some New Zealand girls insisting on standing up when they heard the strains of the National Anthem on a distant wireless. It rather made one smile, but thinking it over, it seemed very fine, and it made me think, what i. have been thinking still more this week, that the throne is truly a God-given institution for our Empire, for nothing could take its place. Nothing could so bind together the peoples of such distant parts of the globe as loyalty to the throne so dearly does. At the time of the silver jubilee celebrations a good deal was said about the King as the father of his great family. It was he himself who had used that tender phrase in his Christmas broadcast a few months previously, and it was taken up by many speakers as truly describing hie role. The Speaker of the House of Commons, for example, said in addressing the King on behalf of the House: ‘You are head of the family; and of a nation and an Empire vou have made a household. While Mr John Buchan, in his book, The King s Grace,’ had written: ‘With the Queen and his family to aid him, he has made Britain not only a nation, but a household That, we all feel at Home to be true, and its truth has become doubly clear to me since I have come among the waimhearted people of this, the furthest distant of the King’s dominions. Especially has this become the case since the Statute of Westminster. Since that charter of independence for the dominions was passed into law the British Parliament. I take it, has had no control oyer the dominions, and the only remaining official link has been the Crown. “Listening on Wednesday evening to the proclamation of the new King being made in London,” said Mr Sutherland, "my attention was caught by the olu words, * Defender of the faith,’ and I thought how conspicuously Ins late Majesty carried out the implications of that title. He has truly been a defender of the faith. 1 recollect his letter to the British and Foreign Bible Society, in which he wrote of his love iov the Bible and said that all hi a life he had kept the promise made to his mother, Queen Alexandra, that he would wad a chapter of the Bible every day. When you think of the King, just think of that, and think, too. whether the best remembrance of him we could make would not be to follow his example in this. We cannot dissociate his character, the true gentlemanliness, consideration, devotion to duty and love of his people that were his, from that chapter of the Bible every day. And it were a good thing indeed if we of this hurrying generation were to learn from the King this lesson and make resolve, in his memory, to taka quiet refuge every day under the shadow of the rock of Holy Scripture. How it would calm our fretfulness and dignity our lives! And it would be worth it if it did nothing more than influence us to speak and write the beautiful, unmatched English of the English Bible. A defender of the faith indeed! His very way of living was that. It is one of the things that made the people love him. He took delight in simple things, enjoyed the people’s pleasures, and in his Christianity was typically English. Canon F. R. Barry in his book ‘the Relevance of Christianity,’ thus defines Christian humanism —‘ a vivid in-

terest in all that is interesting, gladness in all the good things of life, a reverence for and trust in human nature, hallowed and controlled by faith, hope, love, and consecration enkindled by the vision of God in Christ.’ That is a true picture of English Christianity at its best, where it has not been atrophied either by Puritanism on the one hand or licentiousness on the other. And this was the Christianity of the King’s. But at times, and when he got the idea that it was his duty, he was capable of making any sacrifice. I remember during the war he made up his mind that it was his duty to do without wine. It requires perhaps a little imagination to realise just how much this was a sacrifice. The average English gentleman is accustomed to take his wine with his dinner every day; he is brought up to it, just as the French peasant is—and to give it up, as the King did for the duration of the war, shows a strength of character that not many of us could boast of. There was really no need for him to do it. It was just as if you who are regular smokers were to make up your minds to do without tobacco for three years in order that you might give the resultant saving of two or three shillings a week to missions. The King was a Christian humanist, but, I say, every now and then he showed, as perhaps not mauy of us could show, that if he felt the call of duty he could give up anything, and his simple pleasures, the pleasures of the table, of his sport, and his games, would weigh not one jot or tittle in the balance. It was all that that made the people love him. One never heard of him missing a Sunday’s attendance at church. For himself and hie Queen the silver jubilee celebrations centred in the service of thanksgiving in St. Paul’s. It was always by the grace of God that he was what he was. He pleased the Scottish people by always attending the parish church of Crathie when at Balmoral, and St. Giles’s Cathedral when in Edinburgh. There were those who, to say the truth, would have had him interpret the title Defender of the Faith as meaning Defender of the Church of England. But, like his grandmother, Queen Victoria, he would have nothing of it. He knew that, democratic though the Presbyterian system of church government is—and this has made kings in the past distrust it and prefer episcopacy—the Presbyterians are as loyal as any others of his subjects. And so, when in Scotland he was a member of the Church of Scotland, and, although an acrid correspondence once was conducted in the papers as to whether anyone can be a member of the Church of England and of the Church of Scotland simultaneously, the fact remains that the King is so, and why not? They are both only systems of church government, and nothing more. A defender of the faith —by the grace of God —dei gratia. The words appear on every British coin although they seem to have been dropped from the New Zealand currency. By the grace of God, our beloved King of blessed and glorious memory, to use the sonorous wording of the Proclamation, has been called to higher service, to which, as we firmly believe, he has been ushered by the words—Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. And his son reigns in hie stead—a son who has had a training for his responsibilities such as no one before him has ever had, a son from whom we may expect much. In one sense wp expect that he will follow in his father’s footsteps; in another we expect that he will blaze his own trail and be himself, and who knows what good work he will be enabled to do in the solving of the many problems that confront the world at this time, the way having been prepared at once by the tremendous influence his father and mother have won for the Throne and the training they have given him? The new King has a strong personality. That is the immediate impression he makes on those who come into contact with him, and I believe that he will make that personality felt in ways beneficial to the great Empire over which he reigns,” said the preacher, “ His task, said Mr Baldwin in that deeply moving address of his on Wednesday evening, is the heaviest that is laid on the shoulders of any living man, and he has to bear his burden alone. Mr Baldwin reminded u s that the King can have no confidant, no one with whom he can talk things over but his Queen. He has, of course, his counsellors and advisers in abundance —in too great abundance, perhaps. But in a very real sense he stands alone, the loneliest man in the world, with no one but his Queen to share his troubles with. And King Edward the Eighth has no queen. He is alone, although his mother will doubtless be his stand-by. But even a mother cannot take the place of a wife in this. He will have our loyalty. He must have also our prayers and our support in every way that as loyal citizens of the Empire we can give it. There is, I firmly believe, a greater future than ever before the British Empire. I believe it is ordained of God to be hia instrument in the ordered progress of the race. But it must T prove itself a worthy instrument, or He will break it in His bands. This was what the great poet of Empire, Rudyard Kipling, who went to his account a few hours before his King, was trying to teach in his Recessional written at the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897. His words came as a challenge and a clarion call to the British people of his day and they have their message still. Mr Baldwin told us that the Kjng’s last wordswere a question— ‘ How is it" with the Empire? ’ He was proud of the Empire; he loved the Empire, and served the Empire all his life. It is so also with us, is it not? And the more one travels the more one loves the sight of the flag that is its symbol. I know that for myself I can never see a ship with the flag at its stern without a vision of the far-flungness of the Empire of which I cm humbly proud to be a citizen. But my pride is not that of the jingoist. It is always mingled with the chastening thought that to whom much has been given from them much will be required, and that our proud position is that of God’s instrument and God’s servants, who must be faithful. So, in tender memory of the King who ioved the Empire, we consecrate ourselves to its service under the leadership of his son, praying that during the years to come it may be possible tor the answer still to be given, with more emphasis and truth than ever, the answer that was given on his deathbed to the King, “All’s well with the Empire.” The service opened with the playing of the Dead March in Saul, and it closed with the singing of the National Anthem. The other music was appropriate to the occasion. Mr C. Roy Spackman was the organist.