NATURE’S MIRACLE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 473, 1 October 1928, Page 14

NATURE’S MIRACLE

SPRING FESTIVAL DEVONPORT SERVICE At St. Paul’s' Presbyterian Church, Devonport, yesterday morning, the Rev. W. Lawson Marsh, M.A., celebrated the annual spring festival with a special service entitled “The Message of Spring.” He took as his text Songs of Solomon, ii., 7. “For 10, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come.” “Who does not love the smile of the earth when she wakes after her winter sleep?” asked the preacher. “Young and old alike feel eaqh in their measure, and in their own way, the thrill of nature’s ancient but ever-new miracle. “What is the special message of this season to us? First of all it tells us that life is a lovely, beautiful thing, and beauty is one of the ways God speaks to us. There is that within us that leaps into recognition of a flower as the very thought of God. ‘Consider the lilies of the field,* said Jesus, ‘I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.’ To Jesus the beauty of nature was a convicing proof of the goodness of God. That is why we dare to speak of the sacrament of beauty—it reveals to us the love of the Creator. The glory of spring lies not least in this, that everyone, even the simple beauties of the garden, the field and the forest.

“Yet merely to enjoy the impression is to miss the profit. Why did Jesus say ‘consider’? Because, behind the beautiful thought, they might discover the Thinker, behind the lovely curve they might grasp the Hand that traced it. Inseperably associated with the beauty of springtime is its joy. There is joy in the thought that winter is past with its privations. There is joy in the renewal of nature. Is not this an impulse from the joy of God in His creation? And at such a moment we feel how true it is that man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth, but rather in his kinship with things unseen and spiritual. We need this message of joy for somehow or other we order our lives in ways that seem to crush out the joy of life. “It is a strange thing that we all want to be happy and yet give so little thought to achieve it. Joylessness is the greatest reproach of life. Knowing man’s hunger for it, and his lack of it, many have indulged in bitter thoughts and even blasphemed God for the unhappy lot of mankind. Jesus saw and felt as none other ever did. the pity of it, but His message was a bold promise to give joy. ‘I have told you this,* He says, ‘that My joy may be within you and your joy complete.’ A religion with no joy in it cannot be true. For religion has just as much right to prea>ch hope as it has to preach repentance. Does not the apostle say, ‘We are saved by hope’? Lose hope and you lose everything. So every year God sends a word of hope to His children through nature. Winter is not the end—it is the preparation for something new; it is not defeat, but the presage of victory. Beauty, joy, hope: a sacrament of beauty, a ministry of joy, an inspiration of hope; such is the message of God’s springtime. “Are you spiritually dead, ‘dead in trespasses and sins’ ? Does your heart no longer thrill with joy at the thought of Him? Have you lost heart, lost faith in God and in man—yes. and in yourself? Listen to his word, ‘Behold I •will make all things new.’ Spring proclaims the Life-Giver, once more the Heavenly Power makes all things new,” concluded the preacher.