President's Message

White Ribbon, Volume 21, Issue 11, 1 December 1949, Page 3

President's Message

My dear Comrades, The Old Year is rapidly passing on into the place where the Old Years sleep. We sh.dl look back upon the year 1949 with mingled feelings and I trust the uppermost feeling will be thankfulness and praise to God. It is good to recount the mercies of God at the dose of a year and to review all the way by which He has led us. How good the Old Year has been to us all. A favourite old Scottish writer has rather vividly expressed it thus* “ Three hundred and sixty-five days with quiet night between: the right number of Sabbaths and every need supplied. From where did they come? ‘He openeth His Hand and satisfieth the desire of every living thing.’ The fact that we live is evidence that God lives because, 4 He giveth to all life and breath and all things.' Our forgiveness of others is evidence of the forgiveness of God towards us, because it is from God that all forgiveness comes. Our love for others is the evidence that God loves us, because, ‘He i« Love.”’ Let us think on these things. Are they not the fundamental necessities of a Happy New' Year? In this strongly materialistic age we must remember that times of Prosperity have always held an element of danger—the danger of forgetting God and the things that make for Righteousness. It is for us, as individual Christian women, to set the standard for our own lives, and, by prayer and the study of God’s Word, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments. By our doing so the Christian Church, of which we are “ living stones,” shall again point the world back to God and to His ways. Our Union was founded in such a time of danger, to meet this very need and ‘‘in the name of Jesus, our Strength and our Deliverer, we go forth.” We look back upon a busy and eventful year. Of first importance is the inspiration of our World President’s visit and through it we share in a new and deeper way the World Fellowship of our Great Cause. Big issues have been at stake concerning the moral welfare of our country and of the homes of the people. We have tasted victory and set-back. At the time of writing the Licensing Poll is still to be held, but as you read this message we shall all be aware of the result. We take courage as we remember that ‘‘All things work together for good to them that love God.” To my dear friends who are sick and to others who are no longer able to share the fellowsl ip of the monthly meetings with us, I send loving Greetings for Christmas and the New Year. And to the valiant workers in the field, in all the Unions, my heart goes out with thankfulness and the prayer that God will richly bless you in the coining Festive Season and in the New Year. * Yours for Service, CATHERINE M. McLAY.