DEVOTIONAL COLUMN

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 121, 24 April 1925, Page 11

DEVOTIONAL COLUMN

PRAYER. O Lord our God, who did put man in the garden of this world to dress it. and keep it, do thou grant unto us wisdom that wo may bo worthy citizens. Give to us as leaders of society men of integrity, of uprightness of heart, of vision, of courage for Thy namo’s sake. —Amen. READING. Where there is no vision the people perish.—Proverbs 28-13. IF MAN IS TO JUSTIFY HIMSELF. llow is man to justify bis place in the universe and no fulfil tho ultimata purpose of tho Creator, unless he acknowledges the great sanctions of religion. marries his personal liberty to pure unselfishness, and develops his faculties with a high sense of his responsibility both to God and man.— Sir Doughs Ilogg. DAY DAWN. Watchman, what of the night? What tokens dost thou see Of Love’s unfolding light, When hearts from fear are free ? “Day cometh,” answer’d he. “I have beheld the stars Still shining overhead. Telling, through hateful wars, God’s pity is not dead “His shadow walks with me Through darkness till the morn; And wheresoe’er I be, When day from dark is born. "Therefore, I know no fear; Though ne’er a foot draw nigh, God keep 3 mine honour clear, And so all terrors fly." Watchman, what of the night? “The clouds are drifting past. Tho morning star is bright, His kingdom eomolh fast, Day dawneth wide and vast." Lauchlan Mac Lean Watt. Glasgow Cathedral.

EVANGELISM IN THE MODERN WORLD. (Rev. Tom Sykes.) Amid all the welter and confusion of human a fairs to-day the Church can lift up her head with tho assurance of a great mission to fulfil. The Gospel she has to procluim, the living forces she has to reveal and release are for the healing of the nations. This is a striking hour in history, fraught with opportunity and responsibility. The most urgent call to Christ is for a sane, catholio and transforming evangelism. The demand is for serious attention to the primary and olementary facts of life, and a full, honest proclamation of the Gospel. Evangelism must be more, and often other, than the spasmodic and occasional revivals of religion. Religion never revives, for it never runs down; the variations arc duo to the disciples. The essential and ultimate mission of the Christian Church is to carry on a living and vigorous evangelism. In order to do this effectively it must cultivate a sympathetic insight into the variety and peculiarity of the modern attitude to life, especially to the moral and the spiritual. It must also concentrate on and cultivate a fearless and comprehensive faith in the Gospel to meet and supply all these needs. Evangelism must confront and challenge the modern world with its own clear and competent ideals. Ideals are not a vague dreamland for poets and dreamers, they are tho luminous truths charged with the promise of life, shining on the bulging horizons and inviting adventure into their light of life. Practical knowledge of their meaning and value will qualify the evangelist, both personal and corporate, to handle the human situation as it is. A great deal of what is called evangelism has been ephemeral and ineffective because of its slight and occasional contact with tlio real facts of life. Tho only way out of the present chaos and distress is to bring about a Christian revolution. Nothing less radical than revolution, no more code of reforms or schemes of reconstruction, will achieve deliverance. Revolution, of course, has nothing to do with riots and strife, nor does it mean, as some people imagine, evolution speeded up. The Christian revolution will effect a fundamental reconstruction of the spirit of society; to lift it out of tho bog of selfish fears and greedy cunning on to tho sure foundations of right and truth; to endow society with a single motive and exalt it, with a lofty aim. The will to rivalry must be supplanted by tho will to fellowship and the good will of the Kingdom of God made the free bond of daily life.

The forces which permeate and direct ti 10 trend and character of society are not easy to find out and classify. Custom and habit are powerful influences, and the ago spirit is as pervasive as the . atmosphere. Each generation starts out with considerable and influential contributions from its predecessors. The physical, social, industrial and psychological legacy from tho past fashions and directs activity and outlook to a considerable degree. It fixes the plane upon which operations begin. Evangelism must know and understand how these forces work if it would arrest attention as the forthteller of good news. Ignorant denunciation of what is wrong may be only a conceited insult, and intensify the difficulty of evangelical approach. We must acknowledge ihe facts, however disconcerting they may he, and then prepare to right the wrong. The modern world is influenced, even obsessed, by tho PREDOMINANCE OF THE PHYSICAL. The paramount claim upon the majority is the winning of the means of subsistence. Evangelism cannot afford to regard the earthly life as ponai servitude in a waste, howling wilderness. This planet with all its imperfections is still one of the heavenly bodies. Life, here and now, is within the love and care of a vigilant providence, and has a spiritual meaning. I 1 or weal or woe we are more and more subduing the resources of the earth and making them serve tis. It is possible to get all this aid from the physical world, and use it as . a means to the nurturing of a higher life and tho elevation of the race? We have got to handle theso wealthy resources. No uscetic withdrawal from the world is possible. The monastic method may still appeal to certain temperaments, but the evangelist must face tho world as it is ar.d strive to make it what it ought to be. Tho acid test for us is our ability to achieve a Christian civilisation which overcomes tho world not by running away from it, but by subduing it to the welfare of the race. Immediately this transformation is attempted another feature of the modern world demands Attrition, viz., the ascendancy of mind and its scientific triumphs For one thing it will modify the form in which the experiences of repentance and conversion are represented. Repentance is more and other than physical convulsions or the disturbance due to crowd contagion. It is a change of mind —a fundamental regeneration of intention, motive and aim. Conversion does not signify turning to the Lord to seek salvation, but turning with the Lord and finding it. The spiritual magnetism of a personal Saviour and Ilis power oyer mind and will must be allowed unrestricted influence. “He drew me and I followed on" is a true definition of conversion which implies the power of mind and will. As Dr. Townsend says: “Every successful evangolist has been a master of psychological method eitlu.- intuitively or by patient study and experiment. To-day it is possible for every evangelist to enrich _ his mind by the study of psychology, v hich is simply tho study of how the human mind works. The evangelist docs not appeal to vacant minds; he seeks a point of contact with then who already think, feel, desire and will. The thoughts, of such men may need changing; their will may be diseased and at the mercy of a undiciplined imagination ; and psychology will give the evangelist ft knowledge of the psychical processes of sinning souls.” The ability to approach robcon and life from the psychological point of view is an encouraging asset. Time and form aro accidental, temper ar.d disposition pervaded by creative 'truth make life mean intensely end Jneftfl

veil. We are discovering tho spiritual geography of humanity, a new and most entrancing exploration is opening up, which will qualify the evingelist to minister to the ascendant mind and «vill of the modern world most effectively.