Self Knowledge

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 49, 11 October 1892, Page 2

Self Knowledge

This was the subject of a discourse given by Mr Grant last Sunday morning, it was derived from the Psaltn 19, 12 ; rendered thus, " Who can understand himself, an erring one." The preacher said that long ago it was the custom of a great teacher I in ancient Grease to have this inscription i placed over every doorway of his Academy " Man know thyself." This study of self occupied a very important place in the Bible and it was an intensely interesting study. Samuel Rutherford fitly said " The human heart was a very ticklesome thing," but still there are very few people who do understand themselves, and half the pains of life came from being misunderstood by others. The study of ones self was possible to the eldest, the wisest, and the simplest, but the study was elective. There were persons living under the shadow of the British Museum who had never been inside of that building, whilst he (the preacher) knew some young people in this colony who would give every penny they possessed to inspect that remarkable collection. The study of ones own heart was an imperative duty. If they did not understand their moral, their spiritual nature, (or ourselves) the results might be most disastrous. People do not understand themselves morally because they allow their moral life to go with the current, iust go as the force ot circumstances will carry them. The strength of sin is never discovered until it is opposed. It might be compared to Gulliver who was represented as a sleeping giant and permitting the tiny creatures around him to bind him with their slender cords ; and who could, by taking a deep breath, frustrate all their efforts to bind him, but when he made the attempt, all his struggles to free himself were unavailing. It is just the same with sin ; how wicked, how wrong it is to allow ones self thus to drift. The guilt of self ignorance, was second only to ignorance, of God who had revealed himself by works of nature and in his word. The Gospel message was sent to all such, in the words "Awake tbou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ shall give you light" the congregation were urged to reveal themselves to themselves and to receive the healing of the gospel, that they might be new creatures in Christ Jesus.