CRY FOR VENGEANCE

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 291, 7 September 1942, Page 4

CRY FOR VENGEANCE

People In Occupied Territory

Dominion Special Service. AUCKLAND, September 6.

“I think the Archbishop of Canterbury was perfectly right when he said that it is our bounden duty to demand the punishment of the hardened criminals who are torturing and murdering innocent men, women and children because they cannot bend them to their will and reduce them to abject slavery,” said Archbishop Averill, speaking at a service at St. Matthew’s Church.

The cry of the tortured and starved bodies and souls of those in the enemycontrolled countries and in concentration camps must be a cry to God for vengeance, for retribution. The preacher could not think that the sympathetic heart of God—the God of justice and compassion—would turn, a deaf ear to that cry. "We dare not face life for ourselves and for others,” said the Archbishop, “if men and nations can perpetrate the most fiendish crimes and get away with it. We cannot contemplate the possibility of recurring world wars. It is surely a Christian duty to cleanse the world of fiendish doctrines and practices which are making existence a horrible nightmare for millions. “Forgiveness is impossible till our enemies are forgivable. Repentance must be the condition of forgiveness, and repentance a complete change of mind and purpose.” The duty of the Christian was clear. It was to'light on and on to a finish, however terrible might bo the cost. The congregation joined in the following statement of rededication. “Engaged as we are in a conflict between God and the devil, between Christ and anti-Christ, between freedom, and slavery, between peace and th© recurring horrors of war, I here and now rededicate myself to the service of God and the winning of the war. So help me God.”