preserve freedom and justice, but also to overthrow and shatter cruelty and tyranny in their most savage and hateful forms." [530] At the end of 1942, a statement was issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Moderator of the Free Church Federal Council, urging that special intercessions be offered in all churches on the first Sunday of the New Year: "We do not doubt that in all congregations prayer is throughout this time being offered for the Jews of Germany and the occupied countries, who are suffering so terrible an affliction and over whom the threat of extermination is hanging. It is a bitter grief that our nation can do so little to help, but short of victory in the war there is no way in which we can ourselves effect anything comparable with the need, and the massacre goes on day by day. We should be united in constant prayer to Almighty God that this monstrous evil may be checked and the Jews delivered from their tormentors; and as a focus for such united prayer we urge that special intercessions be offered in all churches on the first Sunday of the New Year." [531] Seven "representative German Lutheran Pastors in England" commented, in a letter published in "The Times", as follows: "On the first Sunday of the New Year when the Gospel appointed to read in all German Lutheran Churches is the story of the murder of the innocent (St. Matthew 2, 16-18), we ministers of the German Lutheran Church in England feel in duty bound to call our congregations to solemn prayer and intercession for the Jewish people in their unparalleled sufferings. It was the anti-Jewish legislation as applied to the ministry which brought the Lutheran Church in Germany to its first witness against idolatry and barbarism and caused it to become a 'Confessing Church'. Some of us wish that the protest then made had been stronger, more general, more frequent; but it is not for us who now live in safety to criticise those who under fire have done their utmost not to bow to Baal. While they are silenced by the terrors of persecution, we know that they would want and expect us to speak on their behalf and in the name of all who confess themselves Christians in Germany. <244> In fellowship with them and in solidarity with the people of whom Christ our Lord was born, in solemn protest and deep repentance we recall the words of the Old Testament: 'Open thy mouth, judge righteously and plead the cause of the poor and needy'. (Prov. 31, 8-9)." [532] d. Practical Steps Demanded; the Bermuda Conference