NEW WORLD ORDER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 October 1942, Page 2

NEW WORLD ORDER

PART PLAYED BY BIBLE SOCIETY WIDE SCOPE OF WORK. A GREAT INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION, The important part the Bible Society movement would play in the establishment of a future new world order, by reason of its Catholicism, was stressed by the Rev A. T. Thompson. M A., 8.D., ex-Commonwealth General Secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, when he addressed members of the Masterton branch yesterday afternoon. After congratulating the lady collectors on their splendid work, Mr Thompson referred to the work of the society in Madagascar, Burma, the Solomon Islands and Ethiopia and said that he would refer more particularly to his impression of the society gained during his 20 years of service with it. “The Bible Society is the ‘ most catholic organisation in the world,” said Mr ' Thompson. He mentioned that it had translated the Bible into 745 languages. Only four languages had been added to the society’s list in the past year, due to the war. He emphasised the wide scope of the society’s work and its intense missionary interest. Mr Thompson referred to a visit he had paid to Fiji, where he had seen the great work that was being clone and said that the Bible Society was itself nearly as great a missionary as the mission areas, in addition to co-operating with mission societies. Mr Thompson contended that the Bible Society was one of the greatest of international organisations, and that it was laying the foundations for peace, law and Christian order. Few other societies, he said, were making such a great contribution, on a worldwide scale. He held that the society’s work was well worth while on account of its heroic efforts for a new world order. In his closing remarks Mr Thompson referred to the chaotic state to which the world had drifted and dealt with the effect of what he termed the “poison of wrong ideas” upon the people and their leaders in economic and political life, and indeed on the subject of life itself. He held that the antidote was the word of truth —the Word of God.

“It is a great challenge to us. As a society we are helping to meet it by printing the word of God,” concluded Mr Thompson.