Thoughtful Moments

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 74, 19 May 1944, Page 2

Thoughtful Moments

(Supplied by the Wliakatnne Ministers' Association).

GLEANINGS 1 1 I A MOTHER'S PRAYER FOR HER j SOLDIER SON • 1 As Thou didst walk the land of j Galilee, ; So, loving Saviour, walk with him : for me ; < For, since the years have passed and ; he is grown, ; I cannot follow —he must walk alone. Be Thou my feet that I have had to stay, For Thou canst comrade him on every way. Be Thou my voice when sinful things allure, Pleading with him to choose those that endure. Be Thou my hand that would keep his in mine, AIV, all things else that Mother must resiign. When he was little I could walk and guide., But now, I pray that Thou be at his side. And as ( Thy blessed mother folded Tllee, So, kind and loving Saviour, guard my son for me. —The Australian War Cry. FURTHER LIGHT ON DUNKIRK The following letter which appeared in the London Telegraph, emphasises the power of prayer in association with God's power to deliver : Sir, —Mr Herbert Johnstone's reference to the "Guiding Hand" leads me to recall, that the delay in following up Dunkirk was doubtless due to the fact that the unusually fine weather preceding it had facilitated the British defeat, and the German army was in advance of timetable. The time Hitler had fixed beforehand for the invasion Was September 16-20 th, when the tides are such that the attempts it a swim the Straits used to take place. The weather then is always calm and there Is a harvest moon. But the Unseen Hand intervened, and gales sprang up on the 17th and continued until after the 29th. The invasion boats, collected at many points on. the opposite coast, had to be taken into harbours, where they were made good targets for the R.A.F., but many were swamped on the way. The. Germans then announced that Providence had favoured 'the British twice (the first time at the Miracle of Dunkirk, when the sea went flat and the. tide stood still for us), and that we were totally unworthy of

OUR SUNDAY MESSAGE

tlie favours. We had only to wait for the November or December fogs for which the Channel is well known, to get our deserts. But, for the first time in living memory, there were no fogs that winter in the Straits. February 15th, 1941, was another invasion date, for which we were shockingly ill-prepared. But on February 14th a submarine earthquake occurred in the Atlantic, recorded at. Kew, with hurricane damage in Spain. The effects of the tidal system round these islands was naturally censored, but it was immediate and prolonged. Ships were taken as much as eighty miles off their course, and on the* River Stour hpe it was high water, overflowing the banks, at times when the river should have been low. This was the last invasion (socalled) "scare" before the German armies marched east. Such deliberate acts of God with their powerful and far-reaching effects are not to be treated to the inane stupidity of the word "coincidence." Mr Churchill knows the facts well, and with his forthright, honesty gives the glory to God ; others cannot or will not. Yours faithfully, A. T. Growther. "THOU SHALT KNOW HEREAFTER" "What I do thou knowest not now; | but thou shalt know hereafter" (John 23:7). It passed through the hands of the potter, The costly vessel rare. And the artist's brush hath clothed it , With its glowing colour fair; But it needed the fiery furnace, And the patient work of years, To make it fit and ready For the place where it now appears. But if in the Master's service A vessel meet thou'dst be, Oh, shrink not then from the furnace, From the pain and the agony. Let Him ever fashion and form thee, And mould Thee to His will, And in all thy tribulation Have patience and be still. And though in thy grief and anguish ! God's plan is not fully known, ; Thou shalt yet see the perfect rainbow _ That circles around His throne. Thou shalt clearly trace in "the | glory," When "Faith is lost in sight," His purpose of love and blessing, [ In the darkness as in the light. ' —Jennie B. Logan.