TE NGUTU O TE MANU.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 144783, 13 September 1915, Page 7

TE NGUTU O TE MANU.

MEMORIAL SERVICE AT ST. MARY’S. On Sunday morning a service m commemoration of those who fell in the engagement at Te Ngntu 0 Te Mann was held at St. Alary’s Church, New Plymouth. A church parade was hew by the Veterans and members of the Defence Rifle Club, who assembled in strong force, and marched from tho Post Office to St. Mary’s. On arrival at the church, the veterans and riflemen passed in between a guard comprised of a number of Boy Scouts. There was a large congregation, and the service was an appropriate ono. The vicar, the Rev. A. H. Colvile, preached from Philippians ii., 13, 14; “Forgetting the things that are behind . . . 1 press toward the mark.” In the course of his sermon ho said the thing that makes for’ success in the race was to press toward the mark with steady eyes fixed on ' the goal it was hoped to reach. The glory of the past only kept back those who made worldly success the winning post. Make God the mark and Christ the prize, and all that is best and bravest and truest and dearest in one’s earlier years. All that one has loved and prized will be experienced, again increased a hundredfold in power and beauty and value. One should not let bitter or happy memories of bygone years make us useless in the present and apathetic towards tho future. We should not ignore the great deeds of the past, but ever call them to mind, and should be inspired by them. Were not tho English now inspired for their great struggle not only by their own belief in the future, but by the memory of great deeds dons and great sacrifices made in history? ■ Continuing, the preacher said: “I am speaking this day to men, and the sons of men, who have helped to. increase England’s reach and strengthen her arm. Some of you have come here into the presence of God, the great holdertogethor of the past, present, and future, to honour the memory of comrades who fell in a bygone battle—little known outside this country—who gave their lives for England’s honour and for England’s life, no less than are their sons and grandsons who are fighting in Europe to-day. Our history is fuff of such records—often little known, scarcely remembered. Almost every land under the sun contains the graves of Englishmen whoso names, never mentioned in dispatch, are writ large in the invisible scroll of England’s greatness, and in the book of God’s remembrance. So should the names of those who fell in tho fight of Te Ngutu O Te Mann—tho gallant Von Tempsky, Palmer and Buck, Hunter and Hastings, Russell and Lumsdeu, with their comrades—he freshly remembered that day when the Last Post is sounded in their honour. . . Lot those who are young listen to and obey the call to sacrifice that is singing out across tho world to-day, that they may store up for themselves glorious memories which will be their comfort and inspiration in years to come, when others who have refused will hold their manhood cheap.” At the end of tho service the Last Post was sounded by Bugler Walker.