PAEROA MISSION

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 53, Issue 32423, 26 April 1944, Page 8

PAEROA MISSION

SPECIAL ANZAC SERVICE LARGE AUDIENCE IN HALL ADDRESSES BY REV. THOMPSON \ Good attendances continue to be a feature of the mission services conducted in Paeroa by the Rev. F. A. Thompson, Auckland, under Presbyterian, Methodist, Brethren and Salvationist united auspices; “A notable prisoner” was the subject of the missioner’s discourse on Monday night in the .Methodist Church, the New Testament episode ■of the popular preference of Barabbas to Christ being arrestingly described. The delineation of Barabbas as a Jewish rebel again Rome, whose career of insurrection had involved him in brigandage, and his imagined reaction to the even of the Crucifixion of Christ instead of himself, led to an exposition of the power of the Crucified and Risen Christ to deliver the soul from its imprisonment and bondage to evil. “Gallipoli In The Light Of Golgotha” Appropriately to Anzac Day commemoration, the missioner on Tuesday night discoursed to a large audience in the Civic 'Hall on “Gallipoli In The Light of Golgotha.” In vivid and forceful phraseology the preacher, while emphasising the incomparable uniqueness of the Atonement, traced nevertheless certain parallels- between tfte spirit of Christ’s Sacrifice and that of the secrifices of the men of Anzac.

First, in each case the sacrifice was voluntary; the men of Australia and New Zealand would have scorned to wait, in the spirit of the cynical, selfseeking shirker, foi’ conscription before venturing forth to the great ordeal of Gallipoli. Second, it was undertaken with gladness and cheerfulness, even with singing in .the face of great trial, .peril and death. Before Christ .went out from the upper room in Jerusalem to His trial, suffering and death, He led. the disciples in the singing of a psalm; and the men of Anzac went singing and cheering to what for many of them meant death. Subject of To-night’s Address Thirdly, Christ went to His death in the triumphal assurance that death was the gateway to life, and while most of the Anzacs would have scorned the idea that death on the battlefield earned the right to immortal life, many of them, living constantly in the shadow would surely not have failed to make preparation in their hearts for what lay beyond the’veil of mortality; and the Christian soldier, especially, would die confident of a rising again to fuller life and higher service. And in all this the Anzacs were inspired,, encouraged, comforted and fortified by what Masefield, in his classic, “Gallipoli,” had beautifully described as- the “Unseen Cross on the breast” —emblem of the Cross of Christ. This evening the subject at the Civic Hall is “The Blood-Red Cross,” and to-morrow (Thursday), “The Unveiled Cross.”