Restful Thoughts for a Quiet Hour

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12621, 4 December 1926, Page 12

Restful Thoughts for a Quiet Hour

THOUGHTS FROM GREAT MINDS My pule of life is with sure plan to work, To trust in God, and sing a cheerful song; To search what gem in each cold day may lurk, And catch a side advantage from a wrong. —J. S. Blackie. * * # * I wonder why it is that we are not all kinder than we are. How much the world needs it! How easily it is done; how instantaneously it acts. How unfailingly it is remembered. How superabundantly it pays itself back for there is no debtor in the world so honourable, so superbly honourable, as love.—H. Drummond. • • • 9 There is no finer chemistry than that by which the element of suffering is so compounded with spiritual forces that it issues to tho world as gentleness and strength.—G. S. Merriam. • • o « Prayer is so mighty an instrument, that no one has ever thoroughly mastered all its keys. They sweep along the infinite scale of man’s wants and God’s goodness.—A. Miller. • • 9 • Love is the greatest thing that we can give to each other. Some of us are always giving money, jewels, books oa* counsel; and then we think we have accomplished something. But love is the real gift; no other can take its place, but it enn take the place of all the rest.—M. Kendall. A PRAYER O God. let us find no rest in sin. Harden the path of our forgetfulness till wo turn out of it into the way of life and earnest duty. Enable us to do gcod wheresoever the chance may meet us. If a word of helpful cheer be needed, grant that it may be given unto us to speak it; and let us see the hands that are outstretched, and the hearts that are darkened, as we go through the world. Gather the good of the week together for us, and bind it with Thy blessing. Help us to fling the evil forever behind us. So keep us and all men busy in gcod works until the long rest claims us, out of which we shall awake to be with Thee. For Jesus sake.—Amen. * tt * MASTER, SPEAK! Master speak! Thy servant heareth, Waiting for Thy gracious word, Longing for Thy voice that cheereth, Master let it now be heard, I am listening, Lord, for Thee: "What hast Thou to say to me? Speak to me by name, O Master, TLitt me know it is to me; Speak, that I may follow faster, With a step more firm and free, Where the shepherd leads the flock In the shadow 7 of the rock. Master speak! tho’ least and lowest, Let me not unheard depart; Master speak! for oh, thou knowest All the yearnings of my heart, Knowest all its truest need; Speak! and make me blest indeed. Master, speak! and make me ready, When Thy voice is truly heard, With obedience glad and steady, Still to follow every word. I am listening, Lord, for Tliee: Master, speak, oh, speak to me! • * * • SELECTED PASSAGES And as Moses lifted up the serpent in tho wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up. That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that Ho gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that tho worlej through Him might be saved. He that believeth in Him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, betfause He hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. —St. John. J. L. Garvin has inaugurated something of a new system in the new volumes of the “Encyclopaedia Britannica,” which he is now editing, and has invited controvertnalists to put their case on their special subjects, which promises liveliness and a new interest in the “Britannic*.”

“WHAT THINK YE OF CHRISTT**(A One-Minute Sermon by Itev. .Win, Lowrie.—Lelwirid, 1833.) To be anxious to know what people think of us is a feeling of a vain and weak mind, for vanity is ever associated with weakness, nay, it is weakness itself. To be guided in our actions, or to frame our conversation solely according to the opinions of men, to procure their applause, to be elated with it when we receive it, and depressed when it is denied, is the description of an individual who has no claim to independence of spirit, whose happiness is at the mercy of the multitude. There are some men in whom ( this feeling is very strong, who, nevertheless, contrive to conceal it. who, however anxious they are to ba thought well of, affect at least a disregard for it ; hut there are others, in whom there is the superadded weakness of exposing that vanity, who are always wondering and often enquiring "hat people think of them, as if people had nothing to do hut to think of them. Was he speaking about me. or what was he saying about me, is the first question many persons put. There are few things more disgusting than this unsufferable anxiety of some to find out what )>eople say of them, and these are not always the same, for men do not always say of others what tbethink, otherwise it would often be no great commendation. Thus does our Lord Jesus Christ enquire in the words of the text, “What think ye of Christ?’’ and elsewhere, ‘'Whom do men say that I am?” and again, “Whom say ye that I aqa?” But these questions, betraying, ok they would do on the part of man, a degree of vanity. painful to the individual himself, an itching curiosity to kuow the sentiments entertained of him. proceed from no such feeling on the part of Christ. Ho did indeed suffer from reproach, hut He was never anxious for applause. He did not ask this question for information, as men do; he needed not to ask what they thought, for it is often said. “Now Jesus knowing their thoughts,” He needed not that they should tell Him the opinions of ethers concerning Him, for “He needed not that anv should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.” It was that He might engraft on their answer suitable instruction. consolation or warning, in order that, as on this occasion. He might' confound his adversaries with their inconsistency. He asked men what they thought of Him, because tliev never could be right while they had wTong thoughts of Him, because He came to save men, and He does so. by bringing them to think rightly of Him. It was a regard to their own interest then., that prompted the question. “What, think ye of Christ?” He asked it, as one might ask a criminal what ha thought of pardon. But He was entitled to ask this question, because He had claims to he thought of, stronger than any other individual. He is to be thought of much by ps. for He thought of ns, when nobody else did, thought of ns, in our low and lost estate, and did somewhat more than think of ns, He suffered and bled and died for ns. Is He not then entitled to ask, “What think ye of Christ?” EVENING MEDITATION “Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.”—John. 4-3.3. In some parts of Russia only six weeks elapse between the deep snows of the winter and the ingathering of the harvest. And the Master, who here again appears as a glorious optimist, declares the ripeness of human hearts for the heavenly blessing. Let us remember this in the house, the sanctuary, the school. If we take a bulb into an ice-house it mav well be an age before it flowers, if indeed it ever does so; but take it into a hot-house and it blooms directly. The chilling way some Christians have in dealing with the unconverted is as snow in summer, and not calculated to assist the working of the spirit. The husbandman gees round the garden, orchard, field, saying to everything Ihat grows: “All is ready, you are exr>ected, come along.” So should we treat the undecided. —W. L. WATKTNSOX, D.T). Sir Edmund .Gosse notes that some of the best verse of our time is meant to appeal to the eye and not at all to the ear, and is therefore lacking in music He suggests that it might be well for more of our young poets to read their verses aloud. “G. K.’s Weekly,” the newspaper venture launched by Mr Chesterton a year ago, ia at death’s door and is haying oxygen administered to it in the form of special donations from devoted readers.