A PRAYER DAY

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 48, 20 November 1917, Page 6

A PRAYER DAY

Sir,— May I once ngain take up your space before this matter degenerates into a controversy? If it TOre to do that 1 should be very sorry that I put P°n to paper at all. I am in agreement with all your other correspondents whose letters have appeared to dato—"Common Sense" included—that is to say, 60 far as ho writes common sense. As to the big guns, no one, prior to his own time, had control of bigger battalions or of more guns than Napoleon Bonaparte when he set about to conquer, and nearly succeeded in conquering, Europe. But neither he nor William II of Germany succeeded in keeping God securely tucked under his arm. And I for one am not by any means sure that prayer, and the spiritual and moral effort which prayer presupposes, has not filled many empty stoniachs and stopped many a civu Tsar long before "Common Sense was bora or thought of, and that it will not continue to do so long after he is dead ana torgotten. At the same time I most thoroughly agree with him that. whoever would have recourse to prayer instead of doing his bit and doing it with his might, is a traitor if he is not also a coward a traitor to his God, to his country, to his wife and children, and to himself. I am no prayer-monger, sir. lam not a church-goer. To no one of the mutjtudinous creeds as set forth by the multifarious "churches" can I subscribe, whatever tliev date for long past ages, or were hatched yesterday. But so far us Christian men hold anything in common I am one with them, and stand for that. I have made an attempt, and thank you for allowing me to do so, to provoke the Christian fellow-feeling of this country not to strife, but to food wjrks, if it be a good work to sink minor differences for once and to jokn hands as spiritual allies in an effort which cannot be made without due and earnest preparation, without sincore oontrition aad deep searching of heart. To play at religion, to share repentance, to account life service as prayer would be as futile as it would be blasphemous. This is mv last topd,,«r, except that if n controversial spirit is aroused by anything I have written I hope to see a note from youT pen that "this correspondence is now closed, 1 am, etc., maNGATAINOKA. 17f,h November, 1017.