AN ERA OF PEACE.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8178, 3 May 1919, Page 1

AN ERA OF PEACE.

PRIMATE’S ADDRESS TO THE SYNOD. (Own Correspondent). NAPIER, Yesterday. In his address to the Anglican General Synod now sitting here, the Primate, Bishop Nevill, said: —At the time of my writing there is rather a cessation of war than a conclusion of peace, but as a Church we tender our humble thanks to God for the victory granted to our nation and her Allies, and for the prospect of an early termination of war. Whatever else may be the outcome of the League of Nations, of which we hear so much and know so little, we fervently pray that it may usher in the time when “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” The evil example of an empire which proclaimed ruthlessness and the disregard of all moral principle as its law of war, together with the overthrow of Governments and destruction of national boundaries, has supplied both opportunity and incentive to lawlessness and the indulgence of the worst passions of mankind. Under strange and hideous names rapine and bloodshed still stain the scarred face of violated lands, and lead us to cry out to God “When shall all hatred cease, and lust, oppression, crime, flee Thy face before?” We seem to be witnessing the diabolic rage of the Lawless one who knoweth that he hath but a short time in which to oppose the Kingdom of Peace. But this state of things cannot last, passions must subside, reason must prevail, and God’s law's—though they may be trampled on for a moment —must triumph in the end. Hatred and passion consume themselves with no other result than ruin and desolation. Would God that all peoples would learn this truth. But it is for the Church to learn that God lias now turned another page in the political, moral, and spiritual history of the world. That we are well within the latter days is beyond doubt, and that they will be increasingly days of trial is made clear by our Lord’s prophetic description of them contained in the gospels; hut since He * ‘ has told us before” it is ours to stand fast and to discharge undauntedly the task given to us. The almost martyred Church of R ussia is stretching out her hands for aid, since the Bolschevists have svo rn to overthrow 7 the Christ; while Jerusalem—city of peace —is calling upon ns to establish there—where the pride of man has set up many thrones —the one eternal throne of the all-uniting Prince of Peace.