“CROWNED WITH GLORY.”

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8356, 17 February 1913, Page 7

“CROWNED WITH GLORY.”

CAPTAIN SCOTT’S QUEST. IMPRESSIVE MEMORIAL SERVICE AT TOWN HALL. SHADOW OF A WORLD SORROW. A solemn religious service in memory of tho late Captain Scott and his comracks who perished with .him in the Antarctic was held last night in the Town Hall. It was attended by fully 2000 people. The Rev. S. Lawry, president of tho Methodist Conference (which arranged tho gathering), conducted the service) with the assistance of prominent members of the conferRev. C. H. Laws (secretary of tho conference) read the nineteenth Psalm and a portion of the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of St. John Prayer was offered by the Rev. G. H. Mann. THE IRONIES OF LIFE. There was only one address. It was delivered by the Rev. P. W. Fairclough (of Dunedin). “We are met, ho said, “in the shadow of a great world sorrow and of national disappointmont. Wo stand confronted with one of tho groat ironies of life, for the flags were bent and the feast was spread, but now athwart the festive board there lies a shadow and the flags are at half-mast. The pride of our nation was involved in this. The Viking and the Sea King were hastening to tho last of the goals where Nature keeps her secrets, and we hoped that our men would come out with their names high. But we never thought, wo never hoped, that tho one thing which alone could rehabilitate them, give them a name. apart to shine like a constellation in the Antarctic skies, would happen. That thing was a tragedy; it was death. It is thus that life’s triumph comes. It is from the Cross, from suffering, and from death that men achieve their crowns. God answers prayer otherwise than we expect. The nation prayed that they might have success in their quest and be crowned with glory, and the prayer was answered in the only way possible.” While Englishmen rejoiced at the measure of success they achieved, the nation rejoiced far more at their moral qualities, their fortitude, their loyalty, their power to suffer and to be strong. NO VAIN COMPLAINTS. “ They had made no vain complaints. There was no self-pity and no recrimi-. nation. As Amundsen had said ; the' shield of their honour was as stainless as the marble of their tomb. They had kept their honour bright while they lived, and new it could never fade. The marble snows would allow their bodies to know no decay, but their memory, kept in truth and manhood and honour, would be more lasting still. They had a continent for their grave, and now, in company with the terrific forces of Nature that they had braved, they lay in the grandest of all mausoleums, with the Southern Cross shining above. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust I God accept them, Christ receive thoml” The hymns used at the service were: “ O God I Our Help in Ages Past,” “ Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” “ Fierce Raged the Tempest o’er the Deep,” and “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” Mr Henry Wells was at the organ. At the conclusion of the service he played the , “ Dead March ” in “ Saul.” OTHER LOCAL REFERENCES. References to the tragic fate of the Antarctic explorers were made in vari ous Wellington churches yesterday, the “Dead March” from “Saul” being played at tho close of the services. At a service in the Synagogue tho Rev. H. Van Staveren, taking as his text Exodus 2D- X 3B, “Now, this is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar,” in mentioning many sacrifices which had been made in the world’s history, said that probably none greater had been offered than by tho brave men who had thus sacrificed their lives for their country in the cause of science. He felt certain that the nation would generously respond to tho stirring and pathetic appeal made by Captain Scott in his last hours. No more fitting resting place could be found for them than the South Pole, where, in the words of Dr. Charcot, they had “as a magnificent mausoleum the whole of the fantastic architecture of tho Antarctic.”