EMPIRE DAY OF PRAYER

Southland Times, Issue 24840, 4 September 1942, Page 4

EMPIRE DAY OF PRAYER

Citizens’ Service In Invercargill The Empire Day of Prayer called by the King was observed in Invercargill by a lunch-houi” citizens’ service in the Civic Theatre and by a united all-day service at St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church. The citizens’ service was well attended, many members of the congregation devoting a portion of their lunch hour to attend a short service of prayer and intercession. The Rev. C. J. Tocker conducted the service and delivered the address, and there were on the stage the Mayor (Mr A. Wachner), members of the City Council and clergymen representing a majority of the Protestant churches. The Ven. Archdeacon J. A. Lush read the scripture lesson and the Revs. R. H. Turner and W. H. Greenslade led in prayer. Mrs A. E. H. Bath played the accompaniments to the hymns. “As we look back over these three awful years, in spite of all we have passed through in the struggles in one area after another that went against us temporarily, yet as we view the whole period, the outstanding fact is not that we have been engaged in desperate struggles and that sometimes the battles have gone against us, but that we have been most marvellously delivered,” Mr Tocker said. After three years of war the Motherland was still uninvaded. Bombs had fallen from the skies; great and historic cities had suffered in the blitzkrieg, but the important fact was that the British Empire was still intact. STRONGER EMPIRE “We have been preserved in hours so dark that it seemed that nothing could preserve us,” he said. “If after the fateful days of Dunkirk the enemy had pressed his attack as he has -in other areas, we might have been an occupied country and an extinct empire today. But our empire is not extinct; it is ten thousand times stronger and more fit to meet anything than it was in the days when time seemed to have brought us to the very edge of the abyss. We New Zealanders would be a peculiar people if it did not come home to us that after the perils of the last three years we are surely greatly richly blessed. Lift your hearts to God who gave us this land, preparing it long before we were bom and bringing our forefathers across the trackless seas. It would be a blind man who did not see in all this the hand of God.” The war was no ordinary struggle, he continued. It was a struggle for the very bases of civilization as in no other war. It was not so much a clash of great material forces as primarily a clash of great spiritual forces. It was a war by all the forces for good against the darkness; a war of faith against unfaith. The enemy would not be beaten merely with aeroplanes and guns; we must live on a higher plane than he did. It was a challenge to the very fundamentals of life. Britain and her Allies had raised great armies, but they must raise nations in arms spiritually. Some features of our national life were disconcerting, and it was feasible that the war might be won abroad and lost at home. The finest young men in the country were being sent overseas, and they were giving their all with a heroism never before surpassed. “We are asking them to" die for these spiritual ideals,” Mr Tocker said. “Are we asking them to die for something for which we are not prepared to live? That Is the question the nation must think of.” , Many citizens took advantage of tne united all-day service at St. Pauls Church and spent short periods m prayer. The services were almost continuous from 7 a.m. until 7.30 pm. Tk e officiating ministers were the Revs. A. L. Kemohan, Jefferson, E. Gardiner, Hugh Graham, A. J. T. Fraser, L. W. Rothwell, E. J. Tocker, Pastor A. W. Grundy and Major Martin Brown. SERVICES IN OTHER CENTRES GORE. — Special church services were conducted at Gore yesterday. • In the morning Holy Communion was held at the Holy Trinity Church at 7 o’clock and a public service, morning prayer and litany was held at 11 o’clock, big numbers attending these services. Many persons also attended the Mass at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament at 8 a.m. A service was conducted at the Methodist Church between 12.30 and 1.30 p.m., and at 3 p.m. a women’s meeting was held in the Salvation Army Hall, the speaker being Mrs J. Evan Smith. In the evening a public meeting was held in the Salvation Army Hall, when an address was given by Commissioner J. Evan Smith, New Zealand territorial leader of the Salvation Army. RIVERTON.— A parade of the Home Guard under Captain A. R. Dickson, the W.W.S.A. and the St. John Ambulance Nursing Division was held at the united service of prayer at Riverton. The Rev. J. N. Goodman presided and with him were the Mayor (Dr N. G. Trotter). Captain H. F. C. Raethel, of the Salvation Army, and tlje Revs. H. R. Wright and J. A. S. Watson, who led in prayer. The Rev. W. H. Greenslade, of Invercargill, gave the address. An intercessory Mass was celebrated by the Rev. Father A. Fenelon at St. Columba’s Church.