ANGLICAN MISSION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 904, 13 October 1910, Page 3

ANGLICAN MISSION.

On Tuesday the Mission services began with Holy Communion at 8 o’clock. Matins followed at 10 a.m. There was a special service for women at 3 p.m., and the regular Mission service was at 7.30 p.m. At 13 o’clock the church was filled with women, despite the rain. The service began with the hymn, “ I need Thee every hour, Most Gracious Lord.” A reading followed, from St. John’s Gospel, telling of the anointing of Jesus before His Passion, in the home of Martha and Mary and Lazarus, at Bethany. After the recitati on of the Apostles’ Creed and the opening prayers, the hymn, “ Work, for the Night is Coming,” was sung. The address followed —on the power of the love of Jesus Christ for those He would call His friends, and especially for those whose work lies in the home. The preacher pictured the loneliness of Jesus. His very holiness would make Him avoided by some and misunderstood of others. For years he could not tell (humanly speaking) where he should lay His head at night. Was there any one place in which His tired body could find rest? Any place in which His Spirit could be sure of understanding sympathy? There was —in the home of the two sisters of Bethany. They were His sympathetic friends. To-day Jesus finds His home in the hearts of His friends. What very varied people were the friends of our Lord ! the taxgatherer, the fisherman, the mystic John, the impetuous Peter, the pious Mary, the bustling Martha, the sinful Magdalene. St. John was tempted to doubt how any could be friends of the Master who did not know and walk with the apostolic band ; and we, too, would limit His friends. We think that he could not care for such a coarse, or hottempered, or ill-bred person, for we find ourselves, often, repelled from such. We must get rid of intolerant thoughts. We must rid ourselves of prejudice against those who differ from us in training, habits, and tastes. It is grand to think tuat Jesus could love people so varied and so faulty. He valued especially the home and its quiet inmates. He found rest there. He sought Bethany with eagerness. He has consecrated the home to be a place of rest. We must make our homes places of rest for one another. In so many homes little jealousies make unrest. In others the shadow of some one sin dispels peace and joy, and makes gloom. Could Jesus rest in such a home ? How may we bring rest into our homes ? There are two enemies of the spirit of rest. We must ; cast these out. They are: —(1) 1 Gloom —One member of the house- i hold suffers from a selfish depres- . sion, and her unrest overshadows : and saddens all the rest. She gives way to what she thinks is 1 her “ nerves.” She makes every- 1 one else feel her wretchedness. ; She thinks herself a subject for 1 pity, and even takes credit for her ( repining. Such a foe must be 1 fought, by the power ot Jesus Christ. Fight it by bringing in 1 the spirit of unselfishness. Turn 1 away from thoughts of depression , to thoughts of God. Practice 1 cheerfulness, (2) Intolerance in ; the home —how hard we find it 1 to put up with the trying moods of ! others! Our dispositions are so i varied, and they will jar irritably ( on one another. The mother is i emotional and craves demonstra- ; live sympathy ; the daughter is i reserved and reticent; and they , do not understand one another. 1 We must practice patience with 1 one another. We must learn to 1 be tolerant in our homes. ‘ ‘ Am : I contributing to the peace of my home ? Does the spirit of rest : enter with me ? Do the others i feel glad of my welcome coming ?” 1 The parish church is our Spiritual Home. We must learn to treat it so. To God’s House we must 1 come home to get our spiritual sustenance. Very keenly is this realised by persons newly come from England. Often they feel sadly their farness from home, until they enter God’s House, and, in the familiar worship and fellowship, they find the rest of home. We must hasten to get rid of any 1 grievances we feel against our clergyman, or against the Church, or against a neighbour. They may mar the rest of our ccmraou home; and how little they are when placed beside God and His truth and His church! Martha zealously put forth her energy to make her louely Friend comfortable. There are active women who are always working devotedly for the comfort of others. Every home needs a Martha to manage it. The church and the world feel their need of such energetic, practical people. They may be special friends of Jesus, Mary loved Jesus even more devotedly than her sister. How we prize a sympathising soul in our homes that can enter into everyone’s plans and joys and difficulties! These are -the souls that most help ; us and raise us. Some cannot talk about their religion. They : rather hide it in their hearts ; but to the quiet soul is often given an eye that can instinctively see the state of the need of other souls. ; Such was the insight of Mary • when, beforehand, she anointed : the Lord’s bodv as tor His burying. How well it will be if we , can make our love known to our friends while they are yet alive, ; not waiting to express it till after their death ! Mary saw the secret , of Christ’s life of suffering and sacrifice. So she received our 1 Lord’s great commendation. Practical people may grow contemptuous of the Maries. But | Martha was not the only worker . in that home. Very different ,

were the special works of the sisters. It is so always. There is a work most fitted for each worker, ami the Maries are especially needed. In our homes there is a great difficulty in keeping alive spiritual thought. Instead ol allowing slander, gossip and worthless nothings to occupy our family conversations we may quietly try to always keep high ideals before others. So, too, the wife may help the husband. He will not resent the religious efforts of his wife. In his inner self he esteems it, he desires to see it con-

limit, he feels the need of its help for himself. The gentle, true religious spirit in woman is the one that men will follow. These souls will lift up others, and hold them up. Their work is wanted by the men and the Marthas- And, then, what will Jesus do for His friends ? and for their homes ? To touch upon one blessing only—that home in which Jesus can dwell is freed from the terror of death. Christ plucks away the sting out of death, as he did when Lazarus died. We discover our real friends in sorrow. To some we turn instinctively in trouble. Those two women turned at once to Jesus. Their sorrow went to His heart. It drew His tears. And those tears mean to us that Jesus felt the griefs of every mourner in the world. At every Christian burial His words to those sisters are the first that greet our ears : “I am the Resurrection and

the Life.” Death has no power to keep apart Jesus and His friends. He knocks now at the door of our hearts. Blessed are those who give Him hospitality, who make in their souls a home where He may rest. They will be openly acknowledged one day as the friends of Jesus —before the Father and before His holy angels. The hymn “ What a Friend we have in Jesus !” was very heartily sung by the congregation, who had listened very attentively to this very helpful address, and the meeting closed with prayer and a blessing. The evening service began with intercessions offered on behalf of many who had sent in requests. The missioner explained that the requests were so many that some must be kept back ; but all the petitions would be offered before the mission closed. Answers were then given to two questions, that had been sent in. (x) “ May we pray for faith ?” —(Answer) If we have a desire for faith, then we may and ought to pray that God will give it—but not without a real desire for it. If we confess our unbelief and cry out for faith, our prayer will be answered. (2) “is there an individual judgment immediately after death ?” (Answer) Judgment is going on always. While man is sinning God is judging. And there will be a final day when all the secrets of man’s sins and of God’s judgments will be revealed. After a reading of St. Luke’s account of the Crucifixion of our Lord, the the sermon was preached on ‘ ‘ The power of the love of Christ for those who are His declared enemies.” The thought was based especially on Christ’s prayer for His murderers, — ‘‘Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they do.” That prayer is an expression of the thoughts of God towards men. After all, we are but children, as in a nursery; we are vexed with our toys. In our future state this life will appear as a childhood. Here we see and comprehend so little. What a claim we have then on the compassion of God our Father ! Not that God is a mild sentimentalist. He is a strong Father and strong enough to understand the pathos of our ignorance. The preacher quoted Coventry Patmore’s beautiful lines beginning ‘‘My little son.” But how far can Christ’s plea be made for those who are openly His enemies ? Surely none would wish to be enemies of the best of men. Yet everyone who sins strikes at Him who hates and shrinks from sin. The preacher showed that mere knowledge—mere cramming with “education” cannot keep a man back from sin. But, if our knowledge is of divine as well as human things, then the more we know the less we will sin ; for we shall get to know that sin is. a crime against a Father. No one can know all the consequences of his sin, yet he can see that the act itself is a breaking of a plain commandment, the neglect of a plain duty, and by this knowledge we must stand condemned. Our wisdom will be to avoid the wrong thing from day to day—to do right just for one day at a time, if we will be content to do this, the world would be happier and better. The deliberate enemy of Christ at last see the full issue of his sin and says: “I did not think it would come to this. I thought the cost might be escaped, I did not know it all.” In that moment of regret the love ot Jesus Christ has power with him, the voice of Christ can reach him. Thank God, then, if your sin causes you suffering ; for so your eyes will be opened to its full horror. You will find yourself suffering a crucifixion —perhaps to the end of lire ; but Christ is crucified beside us, and He is pleading for us. He will go with us all down the dark valley if we will but turn our eyes to Him and say “Lord, remember me.” This act of faith gives the plea of Jesus its opportunity, and the glory of the Resurrection will begin to dawn for us over the night of sin. The preacher quoted Shakespeare’s awful and penetrating picture of the sensualist Falstaff’s death. He called out three times in awful tones of hopelessness: “God ! God ! God !” “And,” said the kind but ignorant one who tended him, “I, to comiort him, bade him that he should not think ol God,” —ignorant comfort, indeed, for a dying man.

The after-instruction was on the : Atonement and the need of confession. The Atonement was made by the representative man, who also is God. The missioner spoke carefully of confession. The child feels a craving to disemburden its loaded conscience to its father. So our loaded hearts cry out in the need of confessing to God. Alone with God I must confess my sins directly to God. But to some this seems an unreal thing. They have so long lived apart from God that now God seems far away and strange. So they cannot find peace for their conscience- So God, who understands the need, has appointed a way of help through His ministers. Mr Colvile i instanced his experience in a Mission at Mafeking, in South Africa. There was a large camp outside the town and from it some halt dozen men attended the services night alter night. They sat at the back of the church and would always escape quickly after the service as if afraid of being caught. But one had at last ventured to wait and ask the missioner : “How can I get rid of those tilings—those sins ?” The answer was ; “You must first confess them.” “Yes, I’ve tried ; but it does not seem much good,” “Shall I help you ?” asked the missioner ; and that friendly help was just what he needed. They went into the church and knelt together and the elder man helped the younger to confess his sins definitely to God--things that reached back to his old home and the days since he had left his mother. “And then,” said the preacher, “seeing his effort and his sincerity, I was able to tell him that I knew God had forgiven him.” Who would have the heart to forbid that help ? And that was the teaching of the Church of England. Confession was a help for sick souls. The words of the Prayer Book were quoted directing sick souls to use it. People need and crave tor such help, and God has provided for their need, “The son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins.” On Wednesday an address was given at Matins on “Libertv.” Where the Spirit of the Eord is, there is liberty.” God is not the author of confusion, but of order ; and so a life of true liberty will be ordered by rules which the Holy Spirit will teach. At the evening service, the Bible reading was I. Cor. xiii. This great passage suggested the subject of the address: “ What does Jesus Christ think of my relations to other people?” I have come out of the crowd, to Christ; but now let me go back again into that crowd and consider what duty I owe there. Christ speaks in our ear ; “ This is my commandment that ye love one another, as I have loved you.” We will consider how we can apply this command to (i) those we know well, (2) those to whom we are indifferent, (3) those we dislike. Christ does not put before us a beautiful ideal, nor does he express a desire for it; but He puts before us a definite command. We ought to love one another. This is a fixed law in His Kingdom. It is therefore possible. Again, it is noted that we have here a positive commandment — something to be done, not something to be avoided. Repentance would be an impossible thing to many if it meant the dropping of a cherished sin and going on empty without it. A notice board would not stop a man who has tasted of the stolen waters it guarded. But it a man be shown what he can be, if he be shown the meaning of eternal life, then he knows of something better to take the place of that sin. And then the notice boards are a help to guide him. So Mary Magdalene learned from Christ, for the first time, of the love of God and her chance to live in it. This is not an elaborate rule, it is simple. To many it seems too simple : it seems vague. Perhaps a detailed list of sins and duties would seem easier. Christ might have given a larger table ot “ thou shalt net’s.” The Pharisees amongst us would have liked this, the broken sinner would have been more discouraged. Christ did not do away with the Decalogue ; but He took those dry bones and filled them with life. He placed before us the promise of life and not the fear of death. He came not as the great moralist, but as great Saviour ; and so he ate and drank with publicans and sinners. (1) Eet us take this thought of Christ back with us into the crowd —and, first amidst the groups of those we love. Christ commands us love, not for other’s sakes only, but for our own sakes. “ He that loveth his brother is passed from death unto life.” The miser who learned to love the foundling child was saved from a worse ruin than the loss of his gold. His past was broken up, and he passed from death to lite. Those we love are meaut to help and save us ou earth. Often wheu a man has fallen into sin. the thought of his ovvu love for his mother keeps him straight. The fallen woman is saved to hope by love for her child. Those we love on earth may be our saviours. But we must love them as Christ has loved us, with love pure, selfsacrificing, uplilting. How often that power of love is abused, turned to a curse ! That is a wild, undisciplined, selfish passion masquerading as love. Love is abused, despised, wasted. But it must not be so with us. We must come to Christ with our love that He may make that love what He would have it be. The mother’s love must be consecrated to Christ —its weakness and selfishness are to be purged out. Christ will teach that mother His secret how to love that child as he loves it. So, too, He teaches the husband and wife the secret of true love, “It is more blessed to give than

to receive.” How beautiful is the sight of a young man and woman, in the beginning of their love, coming together to Holy Communion, to Christ. Christ teaches them to lift up their love into a pure, holy flame, reverent and avve-ful. They bring it to Christ; and He will transform it. Thank God for the Sacrament of love! (2) Life is a school. We must go in to love those to whom we have been indifferent, whom we don’t know. These also are meant to help us. The abandoned man in the town is brought to a change of life by the trust of caring for an innocent lad tha* is thrust upon him. That demand Co,me just as a last chance ; and the Holy Spirit enabled him to sieze it. So we are brought from death to life by interest in one to whom we might be indifferent. We avoid one who seems frivolous, or coarse, or uninteresting. Those persons have wants : they just need us. So we must break through our shyness. Christ only can teach us to do that. He will give us prayer—his secret to break our shyness. (3) We are to love our enemies—those we can’t bear —those who went out of their way to injure us, those who slandered us, or, worse still, whom we have hurt. Step by step it is not impossible to learn to love these. The preacher told of a sweet-faced girl in South Africa whose resolution after a mission was “ to try to conquer the feeling of bitterness.” It was bitterness against the Dutch that tried her. They had killed her father. If we would learn to forgive, we must (1) make the resolution, (2) put out of mind the injury done us, (3) refuse to retaliate, (4) pray for the offender, (5) do him active good. Let us bring our grudges, dislikes and hates, and leave them at the Cross of Christ, j A little thing put up against a big thing seems so small and contemptible. At the Cross we hear Christ praying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” What does Jesus Christ think now of my relations to other people? By His command I am being tried, tested, judged. If we fix in our hearts this Command of Christ, it will bring us out of darkness into light, from death to life and peace.

An instruction followed on “ Conversion ” —that often abused word. Many are shy ot that abused word. They think it means “ rant.” “Except ye be converted and become as little children.” That does not mean Baptism. “ Except a man be born of water and the Spirit.” That is Baptism. Be converted, and become as a little child. Conversion is not an exciting thing. It is a turning of the will away from sin and to God. The will is turned. The feelings may be unaffected. There is a long way to go after that turning. Coming to the Cross of Christ is the first stage, as Buuyau taught. Alter that will come temptations and dangers. We shall want all the help we can get in that progress. One great help will be the resolution that may be made at the close of the Mission, written on a card, and signed by the missioner.