INVINCIBLE MORALE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 October 1940, Page 7

INVINCIBLE MORALE

OF ENGLISH PEOPLE i BUILT UP ON SPIRITUAL VALUES. ADDRESS BY REV. D. CALDER. “The days of stress and strain through which the Empire is passing are sifting out the essential from the mere luxury requirements of life," stated the Rev. David Calder, E.D., 8.A., Dominion Secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, at the annual meeting of the Masterton branch of the Society held in the Knox Sunday School yesterday afternoon. “This sifting has proved the necessary and vital service that is being rendered to the public by the British and Foreign Bible Society. The invincible morale of our English people has been built up on spiritual values and will be maintained only in the same way. Even the spiritual consciousness of those sections of the enemy nations, that have not bowed the knee to Baal, must be counted on when the days of peace are again to be established. The war atmosphere has been difficult for the Bible Society; but it is facing its problems with a stout heart. The strain under which the European nations have been living, it would appear, has been driving their peoples to the Bible as never before. The actual sales of the Scripture in Germany just before the war made that year’s total distribution a little more than double that of the previous year. The Bible Society was able to meet the need, and also managed to cope with increasing demands from Hungary, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Poland. All this was done in spite of a shortened income. The war conditions of life in China have had a similar result. The circulation of the Holy Scriptures in that land increased last year by 203,000 copies. Korea and Manchukuo also reported unusual sales. In its world work the Society increased its annual I output by fully three-quarters of a million copies, while it added nine new languages to its grand total, making 741 different forms of human speech in which it now prints the Holy Scriptures. In these services the Society, recognising the urgency of the demands. went ahead of its income, and its confidence in the liberality of the Christian public will not be misplaced. “The Society’s special issues of Scriptures for the King’s Forces are already well known. When the war started it provided 100,000 Testaments for the French Army, and up to a recent date its issues to British forces have exceeded a million copies. These are bound in khaki, Air Force blue, and navy, with the embossed initials of the King in gold, and the special message from His Majesty is inserted just before the first page. Of this issue eighteen thousand copies have been supplied for the New Zealand men going overseas and further supplies will be in readiness when required.” Mr Calder went on to show how the difficult situations that face the work of the Bible Society are being met in Japan, China, Abyssinia, Spain, and how also the general world work is being maintained in its efficiency. The general output of the Society now averaged over thirty-two thousand copies of the Scriptures per day, and at a daily average expenditure of £l,OOO. On the motion of Mrs J. Macßae the speaker was accorded a vote of thanks , by acclamation for his interesting ad- . dress.