THANKS BE TO GOD

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume 11, Issue 9, 1 August 1945, Page 15

THANKS BE TO GOD

(By Dr. W. E Sangster m the Empire News.)

So it has come— this longed-for day. It is hard to believe even. yet. The habits of years are m us still, and, like a soldier long imprisoned who cannot get the barbed wire out of his mind, so we civilians cannot quite adjust our thoughts to this glorious release from fear. It is over m Europe. Let the incredible truth sink into the mind. The last bullet has found its billet and only an outlaw could fire on our men. Let our first thought be one of thanksgiving . . . and thanksgiving to Almight God. It would be hard even for an atheist to explain our triumph on purely human grounds. When we think back to our awful unpreparedness at the beginning, the savage might of our enemies, and the frailty of our early friends . .' . Dunkirk, Norway . . . and that long, long years alone, it is amazing that we have survived, and still more amazing that we have triumphed. Those who believe m God ascribe our deliverance ' chiefly to Him. Behind the universe there are eternal laws of justice, and the world has been so made that those laws cannot be permanently broken. We do not now, and never have, regarded ourselves as a perfect people, but we do believe that m this awful struggle we have contended for things dear to the heart of God. Our victory, we sincerely believe, is the vindication of His will. Justice, freedom, tolerance, mercy . . . All these may live again. We give God thanks for the wonders He has wrought. But we give thanks also to those who have stood as a living, wall between us and the enemy. It has been no cheap victory. We think of the tens of thousands who mourn and whose wounds bleed afresh at this time of rejoicing. The people who are looking with natural eagerness for the return of. their dearest will spare a special thought for those whose dearest can never more come "home. The Future. What of the future? One of the great problems of post-war statesmanship will be to carry over the sacrifice and selflessness of war into the service of peace. Thanksgiving for our deliverance is not enough. Dedication is called for. Nothing else will do.

In this high moment m the world's history we have to give, ourselves -jui solemn consecration to the tasks which still remain: The unfinished .war m the East; the release of thousands of brave men still m Japanese hands; the efficient working of democracy at home; the discovery of a true balance between social planning and individual liberty; the achievement of the highest moraf standards m public and private life. Two days of rest and rejoicing have done us. all -good. A snatch of holiday this summer will serve -a,s a tonic to anyone who can get it. Our weary bodies demand it, and none can deny that we deserve it. -• But if the period is unduly prolonged, if people abandon themselves to an orgy of pleasure which blinds them to the tasks that still remain unlnished, then we shall break faith again with heroes and throw away the chance they have so dearly bought Opportunity. The cynics and disillusioned sentimentalists, and the people who for one reason and another have opposed the war and want — even after the awful revelations of the concentration camps — to try and prove that they were rightj are getting ready to cash m on our tiredness and reaction, and to suggest that nothing is left from the war but hate. They have to be proved wrong. The awful price has bought an opportunity. If we live for the' cause our dearest died for we shall ensure that they did not die m vain. Forward, then! — with bodies braced, minds alert, and a heart lifted to God — to finish the task we have been given to do.