Patea & Waverley Press. MONDAY, JANUARY 8, 1940 UNDER WHICH CROSS?

Patea Mail, 8 January 1940, Page 2

Patea & Waverley Press. MONDAY, JANUARY 8, 1940 UNDER WHICH CROSS?

■WHILST willing- to give the young men and supporters .of the Methodist Church who . recently passed the pacifist resolutions,' every credit for their sincerity one cannot admire the mentality of those who would prefer to stand idly by and see the forces of evil triumph rather than take up arms and oppose them. It has .been truly said that the present struggle is one against aggression, a struggle to prevent a strong ■■■Power crushing all weaker Powers that it wished to bring under its heel. The struggle is actually more than this. It would be bad. enough if Germany were an honourable and God-fearing nation that Would be prepared to treat those brought under its sway with- just and humane laws, biit as it is Germany is dominated by a class of men who know not God, and where the only gospel is the gospel of ‘Might is Right.’ Germany wore to triumph in the present conflict life would not be worth living -'for the people in these countries that were brought under German rule. It is to'prevent this state of affairs being brought about that the young ‘ men of this country are coming forward and offering their '’services to their King, All people who love the security' of hearth and home, and the happiness of those near and dear to them must admire them for it. If all adopted the attitude of the Methodist Young Men’s Bible Class movement, the devil would hold sway in this country—there is nothing surer. Would the young men of the Methodist Bible Class movement like to see this brought about? The lion. Mi 1 . Parry. M.L.0., put the matter very"clearly at the farewell parade of the' 1900 soldiers that are about to offer their lives if need he on the battlefield. Addressing the troops he said : “Men of the First Echelon, you will be fighting for fomething even more than the freedom of this small nation. This monster who rules Germanv has torn down the Cross of Christ from its altars and erect-

cd in its pla-ec the swa.itik;;, or tlio crooked .cross of paganism. You don’t need to read in books what you are fighting for or what our war aims are. You know that you are fighting to rid Europe and the world once and for all of the terror and menace of Nazi ruthlessness and Naza paganism. ” He also stated what was'very true, that “if this war should result in a triumph for the powers of evil—which God forbid—and I think He will forbid. New Zealand will without doubt be one of the prizes, and will become a German colony.” This being the case it is the manifest duty of every man who values the security of hearth and home to come forward and offer his services on behalf of his country, on behalf of civilisation, and on behalf of the principles that the Son of Man Himself laid 'down/. To adopt a pacifist attitude at the present juncture is to play into the hands of Satan himself. If the young men of the Methodist Bible Class Convention value Christianity and civilisation they should come forward and offer themselves in defence -of these principles, and not sit idly by and leave others to fight for them. By their attitude they arc doing their best, unknowingly it may be, to substitute the “crooked cross of paganism” for the Cross of Christ.