HOPE FOR WORLD

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20503, 22 August 1936, Page 7

HOPE FOR WORLD

STRENGTH OF BRITISH ISRAEL ADDRESS BY DR. GOARD , Linking Biblical prophesy with current world events, and emphasising the relation of Israel to the British Empire, the Rev. Dr Pascoe Goard, vice-presi-dent of the British Israel World Feder-al:-»n. London, had an interesting story to tell a keenly receptive audience in the Theatre Royal last night. The Mayor (Mr P. C. Vinnell) presided, and associated with him and the speaker on the stage wera Major E. E. Burrows, of Wellington (national secretary of the movement), Messrs A. Hayman (secretary of the Christchurch branch), Trevor Armstrong (a member of the Christchurch Branch) and A. W. Cargill (Timaru).* The Mayor considered that the present international situation was one that should command the attention of every thinking man and woman, and Timaru should be glad of the opportunity of hearing a speaker of the world-wide repute of Dr Goard. Greeting his audience as “fellow citizens of the great Commonwealth of Israel,” Dr Goard, who spoke on similar lines to the address he gave to the Timaru Rotary Club, outlined the principles and aims of the British Israel movemp*- 1 , and reviewed some of its widespread activity.

British-Israel, said Dr Goard, had come to the knowledge and conviction that Britain was the Israel of God. The power of the sword had ruled in Babylon, Persia, Rome and Greece until finally it exploded, and the power of religion became the great authority in the world. World history showed that wherever one looked, and for 2500 years the world went on under the alternating influences of the sword and religion only to crash in 1914 in a terrible holocaust. But at the back of it all there was one family which God selected to be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth. He had chosen the House of Israel to be the great world bulwark which would lead and save the world. Of course, some laughed at the idea, but so did Sarah when God told her that at 90 years of age she would bear a child to her 100-year-old husband Abraham. But the son was born, because Abraham had faith that it would. And in the same way, in these latter days, the birth of a great nation, the chosen people of God, would come to encourage the faithful and confound the sceptical. God established His covenant in Isaac, and in so doing gave the British the charter of their race. It was to be found m the seventeenth chapter of Genesis, which was an infinitely greater document than Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights or any of the great corner stones of British liberty.

Dr Goard spoke of the advent of dictators as had been foretold in history, and considered that each of these constituted a greater threat to the peace of the world than the Great War had been. The great family of Israel, however, had become the greatest power in the world. Let them look at the unity of the nation, strategically placed by God to control the world. Britain, the United States, Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa, with the mother countries, Holland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark —all of them held the inheritance God had committed to their charge. They were one family, one people, the subjects of one King, charged with the uplifting of humanity, the regeneration of the nations and the preparation of the world for the coming of Christ. This was not propaganda, not human reasoning, but a Divine dispensation which must be fulfilled 'no matter what else happened. The emergence of Britain as the new Israel was inevitable and except in the success of this great movement the future had not one single ray of light or hope to offer the world.

On the motion of the Mayor, Dr Goard was accorded a vote of thanks by acclamation.