GOVERNOR PAYS VISIT TO ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH
Scouts, Guides Form Guard Of Honour

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   His Excellency the Governor, Sir Geoffry Northcote, attended for the first time yesterday a service at St. Andrew's Church, Kowloon. His Excellency was present at Matins, being accompanied by his private secretary, Mr. G.Treverton.
   Members of the St. Andrew's (1st Kowloon) Boy Scouts and Rovers the the Central British School Girl Guide Troop formed a Guard of Honour to the distinguished visitor, who was received by the Vicar, the Rev. J.R.Higgs.
   The Vicar chose as the subject of his sermon "Christian Humanism." His Excellency read the  lesson. Following the service, which was broadcast, members of the Church Council and leaders of the different organizations connected with the Church were presented to His Excellency.
   In his sermon the Vicar said, in part:-
   One of the most noticeable features of the world in which we live today - perhaps a feature never really absent at any time - is the adoption of the pagan principle that the weak must serve the interests of the strong. We have had this vividly demonstrated in polities.
   It has been the little or weak nations who in recent years have become the prey of the powerful aggressor - little nations like Abyssinia and Albania and weak nations like Spain and China. In internal politics Germany and Italy have persecuted a weak and defenceless minority, the Jews in those countries.

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SAME PRINCIPLE

   Here in China the same principle has applied -  aggression because of, and only because of weakness. In the realm of economics perhaps it is true that in the west, at any rate, we have moved forward a little in this matter and the selfish and unscrupulous are not allowed the scope for exploitation that they used to have.
   We read the story of strength's oppression of weakness with pity for the weak but there is the other side of the matter too and that is expressed in the words of Scripture. "For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise" said the Lord. That judgment of Scripture is carried out everywhere in history. No retributions surpass the penalties for misused strength.
   The truth is we are all bound up together, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, sick and well, good and bad in one great bundle of life. No harm can fall on any which does not in the end affect all. No isolating walls can keep the ills or the weak from reaching the strong.
   All ignorance, all sin, superstition, ill will, disease and poverty are now a peril everywhere. No one is safe till all are safe. No privilege is secure till all possess it. No blessing is really owned until it is universally shared.

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CHRISTIAN NOTICE

   But not all these reasons taken together plumb the depth of the Christian motive. The strong should bear the burdens of the weak the world over and in every department of our living, because they too are weak. None is so strong as not to bear the relationship of weakness to someone still stronger. And when we stand in the presence of the Living God we see ourselves as we are.
   The world looks up to a man and cries "Strong!" But when he looks at himself he knows that he is dependent upon a mercy for which he cannot pay, and on a power that he must receive with thankfulness, not earn. He goes out to serve the immature, the handicapped, the backward, the oppressed because he is a debtor to God. He feels himself dependent upon a strength greater than his own. He is he knows heavily indebted to One who lavished the highest gifts upon the lowliest needs.