SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 130, 19 October 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

MIXED PICKLES. An Address delivered at the New Plymouth Brotherhood by Rev. Frank Hales. A young woman working in one of the big stores in Chicago on her way home from work one night dropped a parcel that had her name and address written on it. She did not discover her loss until she reached home, and she fell into a state of despair. She never expected to see the package again. Her faith in human nature was weak. But two or three days after she was surprised to receive her parcel by post. Somebody had picked up the package, and, noting the name and address on it, they stamped it and mailed it to its owner. The young woman's ideas about human nature changed at once. She said that there must be some good people in the world. Humanity was not altogether bad after all. Well, the world is not totally depraved. Nor is it absolutely perfect. It is a big bottle of mixed pickles. The average man or woman would have sent that parcel to the young woman after putting a stamp on it. It is recorded in sacred history that once upon a time a "mixed multitude" went out of Egypt on the way to Canaan, and ever since then, if not before, it has been a mixed multitude that we have seen travelling through this earth to the other world.

TAKE YOUR CHURCH LIFE, for instance. Some people think that it is only fools and rogues that go to church; but that's not so. There may be some fools and there may be some rogues in the church, but there are crowds of good people who go. Some of the noblest men and womem on' this earth belong to the churches. But "we must not expect too much from the Church. After all, it is a mixed multitude that belongs to it. As far as spiritual attainments are concerned, it is a mixed multitude that is found in the Church. The matter of disposition is another mixture, as is also the matter of generosity. 1 Some of the most liberal men and women on earth belong to the churche;, and some of the meanest wretches do as well.

YOUE THEOLOGIANS ARE A MIXED MULTITUDE. It is a difficult thing to get any two of them to agree on a matter of doctrine. What a lot of them are hankering after what they call "apostolic succession." That never bothers me. What I want is apostolic success. When I left home to begin my work as a preacher my mother kissed me, and gave me her blessing, and sent me forth to help my fellow-men. I have never seen her since—it's twenty years ago—and never will until I see her in heaven. That's the sort of succession I love. To be the successor of a good mother ought to be the ambition of every man and woman. After you say all you can about the churches to me, the best men and women are found there, but I don't claim perfection for them. It's a mixed multitude.

THEN LOOK AT THE HOME LIFE. What a mixed multitude dwells in the places we call home. There is many a man who is sunny-tempered in the lodgeroom, or the work-room, or on the golf links, but he acts mean to his sister in the home. A man may be dishonest to his employer, but he is good to his mother. The sunny-tempered man has his weak spot, and his sister always makes him show it. Some girls can nag, can't they? Some girls can bring the best out of a man; some bring the worst out. You men that are blessed with a dozen boys and girls don't need to be told that they are a mixed multi' tude. They are a bottle of mixed pickles. Isn't that true ?

THEN LOOK AT SOCIETY and you get another illustration of this truth. I know there are lots of rotten things in so-called society, but it is not wholly bad. It's a mixed multitude. I don't want to go to a cemetery to find all the good folks. If I look for them I can find them among the rich and among the poor; yes, and amongst the rogues and the harlots. I'm not extenuating anything, but there are lots of people who appear to be wholly bad, yet they are not. They have some good points. They are human beings after all. Once there was a man who was good, honest, kind and upright. Everybody that knew him respected him, even loved him. Eight up to the time that he was fifty years of age he held the respect and esteem of the world. If he had died then he would have gone to eternity with an unblemished character, and a fine tombstone would have been erected over his grave. But he lived to be fifty-one, and then in a moment of sudden passion he killed a man and was hanged for it. Then there was another man who lived in the same town. He was crooked from birth. He lied, he cheated, he gambled, he drank. He was no good. \Vhen he was forty-two a fire broke out in the apartment in which he lived. And when he was getting out he heard a woman's cry in a room that he had to pass. He tried to get in, but the door was locked; then with a strong push he burst it in and tried to save the woman, but she fought him like a demon. She was panicstricken and frightened. At last he dragged her to a window and gave her in charge of a fireman, and then, the open window having created a sudden draught, he fell into the roaring flames and was burned to death. There you have a mixture of the saint and the sinner. There never was so much evil as tnere is to-day, and there never was so much good. There are thousands of men who are honestly trying to better existing conditions. But meanwhile society is a bottle of mixed pickles.

HOW ARE WE GOING TO MAKE THE WORLD BETTER? We sing sometimes at these Brotherhood meetings, and when all that I have said to you shall be forgotten in the str"ess and worry of the years that are to come, the memory of the hearty and manly singing of these grand old hymns will still be fresh and green. And so we sing sometimes, ''God give us men." That's what we need —men, not puppets; men who will think for themselves and have the courage to give expression to their thought whether it pays or not. No priest or minister has a right to do your thinking. Do it for yourselves, and be men. WE NEED MEN OF STRONG FAITH, faith in God, the Father of us all. Don't try to go through life without God. Have faith in God and in humanity, and in your own ability to do anything God calls you to do. Never mind who is against you. God is stronger than evil, heaven is stronger than hell, and he who fights for the right will by-and bye be on the winning side. Have faith in your country. This country would be very much live heaven if we could get sin out of it. Have faith in your town —this town is pretty, but if our streets and footpaths were attended to it would be clean. I never owned an inch of land before I came to New Plymouth. Now I own feet of it in the shape of inud that I carried off the bath leading up to my house.

WE NEED MEN WITH READY HANDS—hands ready to 'help the weak and lift up the fallen; hands that will put plenty of punch into the licks it gives tlic oppressor. We are hearing a lot in these days about strikes. lam not here to uphold them, nor am I here to condemn them. I don't know enough about the merits and demerits of this or that particular case to pass judgment on it, but I'm here to say that as true men we should always be ready to stand by the oppressed and down-trodden. WE NEED MEN WITH GREAT HEARTS. I plead for the supremacy of heart religion over the merely intellectual assent to certain creeds or doctrines. The world affords ample illustration of the truth that the heart, not the Head, is the most important factor in the regeneration of mankind. Back of the proclamation that set free the negroes of the United States lay the kind, loving heart of Abraham Lincoln. Back of Africa's new life stands a great heart named David Livingstone. Why was it that ten years after his death Africa made greater advancement than she did during the previous ten centuries? It was because of the great loving heart, who, worn thin as a shadow through thirty attacks of African fever, made his ninth attempt to discover the head-waters of the Nile and search out the secret lairs of the slave-dealers, only to die in the forest, with no white man near, no hand of sister or wife to cool his fevered brow or close his glazy eyes. What was it that wrought such a change in the South Sea Islanders that men stood and marvelled? It was the great, noble heart of Patterson, the gallant Eton boy who gave up every prospect in England and labored in the Pacific amid the savages who at last clubbed him to death, and then laid "the young martyr in an open boat to float away over the bright blue waters of the ocean with his hands crossed as if in prayer, and a palm branch on his breast."

What was it that called out the sympathy and regret of kings and statesmen, the rich and poor, the outcasts and the fallen, when the late General Booth passed away? Not his wonderful powers of organising and controlling men and women. No; but his wonderful and Godlike sympathy, pity and compassion which went out to men and women of every clime. And what is it that attracts the men to God? It is the love and tenderness of His great fatherly heart as revealed in the life of the man Christ Jesug.

Men of the Brotherhood, the.3oo members of this organisation are a mixed multitude. Our attainments, our dispositions and our inclinations all vary, but we can all be men, and, more than that, we can all be brothers.

WE ARE BROTHERS, and we should be kind. There is not a sweeter, fuller, better word in all the world than kindness. "Tis something, when the day draws to its close, To say, 'Tho' I have borne a burdened mind, Have tasted neither pleasure nor repose, Yet this remains—to all men, friends or foes, I have been kind. ' 'Tis something when I head Death's awful tread Upon the stair, that his swift eye shall find Upon my heart old wounds that often bled For others, but no heart I injured— I have been kind. 'Praise will not comfort me when I am dead; Yet should one come, by tenderness inclined, My heart would know if he stooped o'er my bed And kissed my lips for memory, and said, "This man was kind."

'0 Lord, where from thy throne thou judgest me, Remember, tho' I was perverse and blind, My heart went out to men in misery, I gave what little store I had to Thee, My life was kind.'"