Omaha daily bee., 1919-12-29
prayer Around the World"
Will Usher in the New Year
In a Thousand Languages.
Interchurch World Movement of North America Will
Start Appeal to Almighty God From New York to-
Hasten That "Kingdom Where Justice, Mercy and
Love Shall Rule the Hearts and Hands of Men,"

With "thc prayer around the
world the New Year will be ush-
cred in. In a thousand tongues it
will be spoken at watch-night serv-
ices in near and distant places; in
the great cities of the western world
no less than in distant villages on
eastern hills. 1t will be heard by
the kneeling woman in New York
pew, by the barefoot lgroot head
hunter, by Chinese converts with
bowed heads, by Hindu women lis
tening reverently with their arms
folded 'crosswise on their breasts, by
Persian, Japanese, Syrian, Russ, in
deed by all the peoples of the world.
From New York, its starting
point, the prayer has been sent
around the world by the lnterchurch
World Movement of North Amer
ica, a movement to bring about
Protestant cooperation. By tele-
graph it has been sent to the great
denominations of this country; by
cable it has gone to England and the
east. Thus it has been dispatched
to every mission center everywhere
and from every mission center n
has gone on again in the language of
the country to every Protestant
mission station near and far.
First of Its Kind.
This prayer is the first ever to be
sent around the world, the first ever
to be translated into thousand
languages and spoken Simultaneous
ly in countless places. With one
voice, though in many tongues, it
calls for "the elevation of justice and
of brotherhood" and appeals for the
fastening of that Kingdom where
Justice, mercy and love shall rule the
hearts and hands of men,"
To Mexico City and Montevideo,
the prayer was cabled for South and
Central America; to Shanghai also,
and from there it was relayed to
Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia and
Oceania, to Lahore, India, for dis
trbution throughout India and the
surrounding countries; to Recht,
Persia; and to Beirut, Syria for the
Levant. To Cairo for the northern
stretches of Africa; to Bolobo for
the darkest places of the Congo; to
Durham for South Africa for the
Zulu and the Boer. To Uppasala,
Sweden, and Zurich, Switzerland, for
all the countries of Europe. From
each of these mission centers it was
sent out to the out stations every
where, and the missionaries will re-
ceive it in tn language of the peo-
pie of their districts, and in every
protestant mission station, great or
small, it will be spoken at special
night-watch services on New Years
eve.
And when merrymakers are
thronging through the Boulevard
des Itaiiens, Paris, or streaming
along the Strand, or pressing along
the lighted sidewalks of Broadway,
or trudging through the Bund in
Shanghai, waiting for the ringing of
the New Year in churches and in
chapels, some of them made OF
marble and some of them made of
mud, Christian people of the white
race, and the yellow race, and the
black race, will be hearing the
prayer that went around the world.
The prayer for guidance to replen-
ish devastated earth and stay the
unrest of perplexed peoples.
A Watch-Night Prayer.
Almighty God, Father of all man
kind, at the end of a year in which
malice has so often thwarted love,
we join the prayers of all Thy chill
dren around the world for peace, the
elevation of justice and brotherhood.
Thou Creator, possessor of all
things, who didst make the earth for
the races of men and didst set
bounds for their habitation, forgive
US our greed as we repent of our
sin, and restore to all hearts the
recognition of the transcendent right
of human life to live.
Open our eyes, we beseech Thee.
to the dignity of labor, the sacred
ness of human service, and the priv
ileges of production, that nation may
join nation and man may join man