CONVENTION SUNDAY.

White Ribbon, Volume 32, Issue 370, 18 April 1926, Page 1

CONVENTION SUNDAY.

The Convention sermon was pleached by Rev. Couraey in St. Paul's Church on the Sunday morning. The reverend gentleman took for bus subject the despair of Elijah at the gross moral darkness that had descended upon the people of Israel, and God’s comforting assurance that yet (there were 7000 who had not bowed the knee u> Baal Hiijan was a man of strong character. He had had a marvellous success Mount Carmel, and yet so soon after he was found overwhelmed with despair, and uttering this growl, “I, even I, only am left.”

There are many lessons for the present day in this story. Our age is a wonderful one. the like of which history contains no record. What marvellous progress! What wonderful inventions in the material world! But besides this, we have a great pleasure-loving age. How artificial is much of the present day life; what a break-up of family Ue; what a slackening of the moral fibre of (the nation. All these things make ours a wondv:*ful age, unlike any that has preceded it. We, too, like Elijah, may give way to deapa'x, unless we re

alise, os (Jod taught him to realise, that progress in righteoinmeeH is tieing tnuile, thiiit even now there are 7(MX» who have not bowed the knee to iiaaJ. Women, in their quiet work with their strong faith, hour the still small voice of which whispers of diffitJuJties overcome and faith triumphant.. True to their ideals, they must toil on, (i4id victory is ever coming nearer ;uid yet nearer. The women are not left to work alone. Much encouragement may in* found in contemplating the many forces working with us and for us. Their aid is ever ours if we will believe in their (iraience, and ts* willing to work with them. Sometimes we ai*e like Klija.ii. apt to think we are alone in the conflict, and so we fail to see all that is working for us, and we lose the inspiration and help which we should derive from the knowledge and recognition of thtw oth(*r forces silently cooperating with us. Slowly, but yet surely, the international spirit is growing, love and brotherhood an* becoming more than mere words, and the spirit of peace is Ve nding her wings and the <Uiy is hastening on whim the wliolo planet hJuJI abide beneath her outspnad pinions. Partly we divpair, bemuse (he war and its aftermath have tom the veil from before our eyes, and revealed evils in all their naked ugliness. Seven thousand women in New Zealand are discouraged by forgetting that many others are silently working wifih tliem. * Reuttered away, among the hills and valleys, in the lonely forests, and on quiet farms, are still to he found many who have never bowed the knee Baal, and who will mid in the work to w hich we dedicate our lives*, for (lod and Home and Humanity.