Árdís - 01.01.1947, Side 13

to them is to live our lives in true dedication to the service of God and
country in the propagation, development and full attainment of these
ideals amongst men of goodwill everywhere.
God has given us good lands wherein to live. He has blessed our
lands with an abundance of good things, both material and spiritual.
He has given us the wherewithal to live by an increasingly high standard
of well-being; both material and spiiitual wealth and resources for
human welfare and happiness have been made available to us by the
bounteous lovingkindness of our Heavenly Father. Mindful of the truth
that every gift of God is good and intended for our blessing, and that it
becomes bad and harmful only when used to serve evil ends, how have
the peoples of our respective nations responded to God’s goodness?
How have they discharged their duties of gratitude to God in their
stewardship of the bountiful blessings wherewith He has showered
them?
During the recent war, a Christian in a much-bombed country
wrote as follows: “We have been a pleasure-loving people, dishonoring
God’s day, picnicking and bathing; now the seashores are bared, no
picnics, no bathing. We have preferred motor travel to church going;
now there is a shortage of fuel oil. We have ignored the ringing of the
church bells calling us to worship; now the bells cannot ring except to
wam of invasion. We have left the churches half empty when they
should have been filled with worshippers; now they are in ruin. We
would not listen to the way of peace; now we are forced to listen to the
way of war. The money we would not give to the Lord’s work is now
taken from us in taxes and higher taxes. The food for which we forgot
to give thanks is now unobtainable. The service we refused to give God
now is conscripted for the country. Lives we refused to live under God’s
control now are under the nation’s control. Nights we would not spend
in watching unto prayer are spent in anxious air-raid precautions.”
Many Christian people in our lands are guiltless of these offences;
but many more must, if they be sincere, admit the truth of the charge
and plead guilty. Our nations by and large must come to sincere repent-
ance; our people as a whole must forsake the lusts of the flesh, the lusts
of the eye, and the pride of life, and the using of God’s bountiful and
splendid gifts for their own selfish purposes. Much more that a mere
trickle of God’s vast sti-eam of gifts must be returned to Him for the
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