MILITARY TRAINING

Hokitika Guardian, 19 October 1927, Page 4

MILITARY TRAINING

* PRESBYTERIAN VIEW. ’’ AUCKLAND, Dot. 1 7. The changed attitude of the Presby- . erian Church towards compulsory mili.‘tar.v training was plainly stated in a .sermon in St. David’s Church by the Rev. I). C. Herron, himself a holder of i the Military Cross for war service as f padre. ‘‘There were days «ut there,’’ lie said ‘‘when we with the iron entering into tiie soul saw men caught in the open h.v machine-gun fire, clays when we resolved that it must never happen again. This congregation through succeeding generations will be forever linked with those all over the earth who struggle for the Christianising of international relationships.” War and preparation for war always tended to breed in the minds of those pnrticpating further distrust for other nations. That was why the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand had definitely set its face against the continuance of compulsory training. Such training tended to develop in the minds of those being trained a suspicion of the good faith of other peoples. So long as there was no mutual faith, there could l>e no world safety, hut once suspicion had been replaced by a spirit of trust, there was no more reason why the nations should continue to pile' up armament than there was why individual citizens should carry revolvers.

Although progress towards that ideal seemed exasperatingly slow, there was no occasion for pessimism. Indications were not- wanting that gradually the balances were tilting in the right direction, hut. while there was colour iu the sky, the day for which men who had died had not yet fully come. Tu many ways the present age was the most momentous in the Christian era. If. before it closed, the nations had definitely shifted the grounds of their national sofety so that war had become a thing of past history, the Kingdom of Christ would advance hy leaps and bounds.