SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 276, 18 May 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

DIVES OR LAZARUS? Being a Sermon preached to Men Only at St. Mary's oil May 12, by the Vicar (Rev. A. 11. Colvile). There are certain parables of Jesus Ohrist which present a peculiar and especial difficulty to the modern mind, and seem ;to cut right across the conceptions of ordinary morality and justice which obtai|i among thinking and unthinking men 'of the present day, and perhaps among men who pride themselves upon being| essentially "up-to : date." At the last njien's service we had in this churoh, we were thinking, you may remember, of the parable of tilt* talents, another of our Lord's picture-stories, the moral of which "Unto him that hath shall he give.il, ' seemed at first sight to be at variance with our sense of justice. And yet wjhen we examined it we saw how completely the great Teacher was justified in! enunciating that law as naturally governing the moral and religious life of man. Xow we come upon a parable which -eems at first even .more startling as a revelation of the love of God the Fatheit for His sous, a parable which no preacher of the present day should pass over in silence, because of THE DISTRESS IT lIAS CAUSED to many earnest Christians, because of the confusion of thought it has brought to others, because of the occasion it has given to the enemies of Christ to blaspheme. and because of the monstrous conclusions that have been drawn from it; for when we think of the pitiful, rejected appeal recorded in the parable, "Send Lazarus that lie may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame,'" or remember that Jesus Christ Himself declared that lie who refused such relief to a sull'erer refused it to Him—'T was thirsty and ye gave Me no drink"—we see the great importance of understanding the true moral of the parable, and the teaching that Jesus Christ | intended to convey by it. Is there not a difficulty in reconciling it with the great modern ideals of" the laiherhoocTof Cod. and the brotherhood of man about which we have heard so much lately? There is a difficulty at first sight; the parable seems to negative any such ideals, and yet I sav, then, the prominent thought of this "parable is that TEST POfXT OF CHARACTER turns not upon orthodoxy or breaches of the moral law. but upon man's duty to his fellow-man: that selfishness, ex- ! aggerated individualism in this life is so detrimental to character, to real progress, that some painful educative purification in the coming life is an absolute necessity ,if we are to believe that God is a real Father, and not just a weak, benevolent being, but :t Father with the true interests of bis sons at heart. It teaches us, too. that it is possible to manifest gross selfishness in another sphere ofi being when the opportunity but not tjlie will of manifesting it has been wanting in the circumstances of this life: A true picture. Lazarusj at the gate of Dives is a true picture; a picture perhaps more easily recognised by the people of the Old Conntry than of this, for there the. contrast between the very rich and very poor is more .striding and more significant. But it is a picture readily understood by all—of a state of things that has obtained in the world since civilisation began to mean anything to man; and the lesson to be drawn from it is obvious and apparent—the constant claim that our fel-low-men have upon our time, our sympathy, our energy, our helpfulness. The picture drawn by our Lord can be well understoojl. The moral of the first scene is obvious; to all. but we cannot by looking at tills scene alone decide which is the better man. Rut the second scene! The positions are so startlingly reversed —the ricli man in Hades, Dives at the mercy oft a mean, pitiless, disembodied Lazarus \yho contemptuously refuses his pathetic ; request for water. What teaching rloes Christ intend to convey to' us from ihat? Is it the duty or glory of '"getting one's own back"?' Is it the morality of a vicious triumph over one's enemies?; Is it the hopelessness of eternal punishment? Let us 'think first of Dives—"ln Hades he lifted Vip his eyes, being in torments." Xow, first of all.' I want particularly to emphasise the fact that this second scene of the payable cannot be used as an argument to 'justify the ! -(Mi-dishonoring belief in the unending torments of the lost. Y\ ithout remedial and restoring agency in the world beyond the grave, human life for countless thousands would be but A (ifIASTLV MOCKERY. Think of the thousands born into the world; born, so to speak, to a terrible inheritance, with the sins of their fathers already upon them; of the thousands never taught morality or selfcontrol ; of the thousands whose circumstances and environment give them little chance of real progress here oil earth. To believe, that they live under the doom of a hopeless damnation is to dethrone Uod. to believe in a victorious devil or an eternity of evil, and make the heaven of the saved a mere concentration of unutterable selfishness. Whatever else the parable teaches it does not teach everlasting punishment. Dives was being punished, not out of a sort of vindictive justice, ''because he'd had a. good time in this world." hut in order that lie might be purified and restored. That flame which the parable speaks of is not endless, hopeless retribution, but love inexorable, in painful remedial action consuming the tares and clmlT of a wrongly-formed character. And look at the glimpse we get of the good effect, that diseipli ne is already having on him? W by, it is developing in him exactly the opposite grace to the sin that wrecked his life'.' On earth he was a selfcentred. respectable, wealthy individualist. Xow in Hades be is beginning to think of others and care for others. "At least send and warn my brethren!" he erie~. THE DISCTPLIXK OF HADES is kindling the dormant sympathy of his heart, which on earth his luxury and riches and materialism seemed to have killed altogether. He is beginning to make progress, and surely no man whose mind is rightly balanced will believe that our Father, by His remedial chastening, will thus produce amendment in character, only to crush it out in endless, hopeless pain. To be punished with what the .Bible calls "destruction from the presence of (be Lord" is not to be

essentially severed from Clod, which is impossible, but to wander under the penalty of an imagined solitude which our 1 own sins have caused. such solitude as we often and often feel hero in this world for that remedial discipline of which [ have spoken often begins in this life, and in Ihis life we 1 lave to endure the pains of Hades and the cross on which our sins have placed us. Tint "If [ go down into hell, thou art there also." Hod is there in love, unchanging, tireles~. patient, greater than the ages and the wills of men. for Cod is love. At

] last in the far-off. at last the awaking 1 soul shall arise and come to its Father.