UNITED SERVICE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 March 1940, Page 7

UNITED SERVICE

OPENING OF CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

GATHERING IN MASTERTON PARK. ADDRESS BY MR McNEUR. The local Centennial celebrations opened with a united service of commemoration and thanksgiving in the Masterton Park on Sunday afternoon. There was a very poor attendance. Apart from a partially filled grandstand, only a handful of the publie attended. 'fhe service, which was brief but impressive, was in the hands of the Mastertoil Ministers’ Assoc ia t i on.

Following on the singing of the National Anthem, the Ven Archdeacon E. J. Rich led in exhortation and confession, which was followed by the absolution. The Lord’s Prayer and the hymn. “Now Thank We All Our God,” were joined in. The Rev Fred J. Parker gave a Scripture reading and Major Mahaffie led in a prayer of thanksgiving. The hymn "O God of Jacob,” the address by the president of the Masterton Ministers’ Association, prayers of intercession and the singing of "God Defend New Zealand” brought a most .impressive service to a close. The music was played by the Municipal Band. “We have reached our hundredth milestone,” said the Rev David McNeur, president of the Masterton Ministers’ Association, in addressing the gathering. “Let us call ourselves sojourners, as our fathers were. Let us look back at pioneer trails, look up at destiny’s stars, look ahead and shout ‘There is the goal,’ or ‘We seek a city,’ or maybe ‘Treasures are hidden in the ranges.’ The pioneers did that.

. . . Rest a while. What have they to say to us —those men from Devon, Old Father Thames, the women of Essex and Sussex. Frae the banks of the Clyde, Auld Reekie, the Highland hills, Land of the Leek and the Emerald Isle, who came with such splendid vision—Room for another nation in the van, among the foremost pioneers that climb, ‘the steps of progress where the goal of man, illumes the highest pinnacle of time.’ They came in those immigrant ships followed by the prayers of those left behind. Gallant sea captains—sailors who brought their ships through storms in the Bay of Biscay and calms in the doldrums. What sent them out from kith and kin from heather hills, Killarney and the Downs? Whatever it was, God used the wrath of men to praise him —brought the best out of the worst. But they never lost their intense affection. deep loyalty, that British patriotism for home. They brought the best thing with them, the best traditions and the will to work. Hearts of oak laid granite foundations—a democracy signed at Runnymede. Creeds and gospels that put iron in the blood, a faith that brought God very near and a practical religion that entertained strangers and loved your neighbour as yourself. The pioneers had their zero hours, when they could not answer the question ‘Why left I my home,’ but they made quick recoveries. How lonely. were those whares in our hills and plain's where women and children remained isolated for weeks and months without a break while their men carved out a home in the wilderness.

“Turning to our own Wairarapa one pictures the first white man, in 1840, that climbed the Tararuas and viewed our plains and hills—the man who in 1841 first explored it and in 1842 the surveyor who entered it from the north and tramped across the Rimutakas by the trail that is now a highway.. Then followed the 350 sheep that have increased a thousand-fold. We stand unique in the enshrining of pioneer memories and names —Masters, Carter, Martins and the rest. Names with scores of others that we are proud of, descendants of whom we are delighted to know. In all their toil and business they found time to worship God, called for ministers before they could be even sent, set up their Sunday schools, built their churches and consecrated men came to preach in them, worthy successors to the Rev Samuel Marsden, Bishop Pompallier, the Rev Samuel Leigh and the Rev John McFarlane. We. the spiritual descendants of these pioneer preachers, feel that we are not worthy of the rich religious heritage that they bequeathed to us. As the pioneers look down on us. their sons and daughters, enjoying so many comforts and amenities they did not even dream of. what do they think of us? Will they forgive our waste of many things they held so dear, our lack of appreciation of their labours and hardships. . . . “When we remember the glorious dead, let us the living walk humbly.” continued Mr McNeur. Let us work harder, serve more freely, plan more wisely and take a longer view. We are starting a century, a new volume is to be written. Let us start and carry on with the spirit of the old pioneers who hitched their waggon to a star —the Southern Cross, who let the cross stand for sacrifice and strove to make the new land God’s own country.” Mr McNeur concluded his address by referring to the spirit of co-operation which existed betweenflthe Maori and the pakeha races. POOR ATTENDANCE STRONG PROTEST BY MAYOR. "I was ashamed of Masterton, and am completely at a loss to account for its apparent lack of interest in the service," stated the Mayor of Masterton, Mr. T. Jordan, in commenting on the poor attendance at the united Centennial service of thanksgiving held in the Park yesterday. “I hope that the public during the remainder of this week will do something to make amends for its apathy, and will make manifest its appreciation of the blessings that we enjoy in this country thanks to the labour, sacrifice and foresight of our early settlers."