“BROKEN LIGHTS”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 597, 25 February 1929, Page 14

“BROKEN LIGHTS”

ADDRESS BY MR. REUBEN DOWLE “A Great Light, and Broken Lights,” was the subject tak#n by Air. Reuben E. Dowle. A.V.L., Ph.S., in the Presbyterian Church, Pokeno, last evening. He took for his text Matthew iv., 16, “The people which sat in darkness saw great light, and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.”

“The tardiness with which mankind has always received this light is amazing,” said Mr. Dowle. “It is the same in tills twentieth century. Any will o’ the wisp is preferred to ‘the light which lightetli every man that cometh into the world.’ How contrary human beings seem! The spiritual application of the text is easily discovered. The ancient Jews had lived as a ‘crooked and perverse nation, and had not profited by their privileges; far from it, for Christ had called them a “crooked and perverse nation, and a generation of vipers”.’ “The prophet Isaiah, looking into the future, speaks of a ‘great light.’ The promise of the Redeemer loomed large in his inspired mind. Though the Jews had sadly neglected their privileges, there was still a ‘glorious Hope’ for the nation.

Applied to modern times, this subject implies the existence of sin, superstition, arid, ignorance. The stubbornness of human nature is all too manifest, and the tardiness to come to the true light, the Light of the World, is seen on every hand. People to-day are living extensively in the region and shadow of death. In many cases they are living without God and hope in the world. The self-righteous Jews were undoubtedly types of the modern idolator, the worshipper of the things which perish. Human methods for the renovation of mankind are, indeed, plentiful, but they are, to quote Tennyson, only “broken lights.” They are mere substitutes for the genuine article, spurious imitations of the glorious Light shed forth from Calvary. These spurious lights, devices for raising the individual and the State, are mostly worthless. The harassing problems of the age cannot be solved by legislation and education alone. A deeper and noble patriotism than they can supply is needed for to-day. Isaiah probably felt discouraged by the waywardness of the people, yet his faith overcomes discouragement, and he recognises the possibility of a redeemed Israel. In modern days there is great need for return from the “broken lights” of human invention to th« Light of the World.