SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 148, 9 November 1912, Page 9

SUNDAY READING

TMM YALI'K OF THE JIU.MAX SOUk :l Sermon preached by the HEY • IA.UKS ('IIAIITMIUS at" Kiizroy recently. (Text: .Mark viii., 37). It is 11i 11 ii-uIL in estimate the value of the .soul. This world is a very "rami jn <j|io l,\. Its llmvi'i's are God's thoughts in blooms; its rucks (<oil's thoughts in stone; its dcwdrops are God's thoughts in pearl*. This world is (Sod's wayward child; il has wandered oil' thiuugh the Ilea veils, lint about I'JOO years ago. one Christinas night, God sent out" a si.ster world to call the wanderer back. And it hung over lieihleheni only lung enough to reveal God's divine purposed "Oh!" you say. "lake my soul! (Jive me the world. lam willing to take it in exchange. lam ready for the bargain for so beautiful and vast a world!" Geologists tell us that it is already on lire, that it is a living coal, that it is just like a ship on lire at sea, the llames not bursting out because the hatches are kept down. And yet you propose to give me, ill return for my soul, a world for which you can give no insurance. •"Oh!" you say, "the water of the oceans will wash over the land and put the fire out." Oh, no. There are inflammable elements in the water, hydrogen and oxygen. Take away the hydrogen and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans would blaze like heaps of shavings. You want me to take tnis world, for which you can give no possible insurance.

WOXDERS OF THE UNIVERSE. Astronomers have swept their telescopes through the sky and have found out that there have been thirteen worlds disappear in the last two centuries. They looked just like other worlds. Then they got very red: they were on fire. They got ashen, showing they were burning down. Then they disappeared, showing that even the ashes ha'd been disseminated. And if the geologist is right in his prophecy, then our world is°to go in the same way. And yet you want me to exchange my soul for it. Ah! no; it is a world that contains the elements of social destruction. Suppose you brought an insurance agent to look at your property for the purpose of giving you a policy upon it, and while he stood in front of it he should say, "That house is on lire now in the basement." Do you think you will get any insurance on it? Yet you talk about this world being a safe investment, and you could get some insurance upon it while down in the basement it is on fire!

I may also say that this world is a property with which everybody who has taken it has had trouble. Now, I know a large stretch of land that is not built on. r ask, what is the matter? The reply is that every owner that has had it has had trouble with it. It is just the same with this world: everyone that lias had anything to do with it as a possession lias been in perplexity. How was it with Lord Jiyron? Did he not sell his immortal soul for the purpose of getting the world? Was he satisfied with the possession? No; the poem describes his ease when it says: Drank every cup of joy, Heard every trump of "fame, Drank early, deeply drank, Drank draughts which common millions might have quenched, j Then died of thirst because there was j no more to drink.

HOW TO .MEASURE A MAX'S PROPERTY. Oh, yes, lie had trouble with it; and so (lid Napoleon. After conquering nations by force of his sword, lie lies down to clie, his entire possessions—the military boots that he insisted on having upon his feet while lie was dying. Or the even greater sorrow, perhaps, of having to retreat from Moscow, his aimy defeated, his hopes .shattered, his pride of achievement humbled. So it lias been with men who had better ambition. Thackeray, one of the most genial and lovable souls, after he had ivon the applause of all intelligent minds through his genius, sits down in a restaurant in Paris, looks to the other end of the room and wonders whose that forlorn and wretched face is. Rising U p after a while, lie finds that it is Thackeray in the mirror. Talking about a man gaining the world! Who ever owned Asia? Who ever gained a city? Talk about gaining the world! No man ever gained it, nor one hundred-thousandth out of it. "S on are demanding that I sell my soul, not for the world," but for a Jragment of it. Here is a man who lias had a large estate for forty or fifty years. Hi; lies down to die. - You say, '•That man is worth thousands." Is her J.he surveyor comes along with his compass and chains, and you say: "There is a property extending over three miles in length, and three miles in breadth." Is that the way to measure that man's property'! So; you don't need any surveyor witJi his chains and compass. That is not the way to measure that man's property now. Jt i.-, tile undertaker you want, who will come and put his linger ill his vest pcoket and measure live feet nine inches one way and two and a-luilf feet the other way. That is the man's property. Oh, no; I forgot—not so much as that, for he does not own even the grave ill which lie lies, for the deed of that belongs to his heirs. What a property you propose to give me for my soul! TESTING THE MATTER. Now, when you arc offered this world as a possession, 1 want you to test the matter. Ido not want you to go into this bargain blindly. L want you to ask about the title, the insurance, about whether you can keep it, about whether you can get it all, or the ten-thousandth, or the one-hundredth-thousandth part of it. Now, let us look at the" other property—till! soul. We cannot make a bargain without seeing the comparative value of it. It is the most wonderful of machinery ever put together.

-Machinery is of value in proportion as it is mighty unci silent at the same time. You look at the engines anil machinery in the Philadelphia .Mint, and as you see it performing its wonderful work, you will be surprised to find how silently it goes. Machinery that roars and tears soon destroys itself,- silent machinery is most effective. Now, so it is with the soul of man. with all its tremendous faculties—it moves in silence. Judgment, without any ostentation, lifting its scales; memory without any noise bringing down its treasures; conscience taking its judgment seat without any excitement; the understanding and the will doing their work. You listen at the door of your heart. You hear no sound. THE SOUL IS ALL QUIET. It is so delicate an instrument that no human hand can touch it. You break a bone, and with splinter and bandages the surgeon sets it; but a soul off the

balance no human power can readjust it. With one sweep of its wing it circles the universe, and overvaults the throne of God. Why, in the hour of death the soul is so mighty that it throws off the body as though it were a toy, and it drives -back medical skill. It breaks through the circle of loved ones who stand round the dying bed. With one leap it springs beyond sun, moon and stars, and chasms of immensity. Oh, it is a soul superior to all material things! Xo fires can consume it; no floods can drown it; no rocks can crush it; no

walls Oiiii impede it; nu lime can cxh.r.i-i it. It wauls no bridge oil which to cross. ft wants no plummet with which to sound a ileplh. A soul .so mighty. >.o swift, so silent, must it not be a priceless soul?" What shall it profit a man if slii' shall gain the whole world and lose liis own soul; or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? THE VAU'K AND MKASUUK OK A SOUL.

I. calculate the value of' a soul. also, by its capacity for happiness. How much joy it can get in this world out of friendships, out of books, out of clouds, out of (lie out of llowcis, out of tell thousand things, ami yet all the joy it lias here does not test its capacity. You arc in a concert before the curtain rises, and you hear the instruments preparing—the sharp snap of a broken string, the scraping of the bows. There is no enjoyment in that, you say; it is only fretting ready for the music. And all the enjoyment we have in this world, the enjoyment we think is real enjoyment, is only preparative; it is only the first stages; it is only the entrance, the beginning of that which shall be the orchestral harmonies and splendors of the redeemed. You cannot test the full power of the soul for the happiness in the world. How much power the soul has hero to find in enjoyment and friendship! But, oh! the grander friendship of the soul in the skies! The flowers are sweet here, but how much sweeter will they be there? -.My beloved is come down in his garden to gather lilies." Christ is glorious to our souls now, but how liueh grander our' appreciation after a while! A conqueror comes back after the battle. He has been lighting for us. He comes upon the platform. He has one arm in a sling; the other holds a crutch. As he

mounts the platform, oh! the enthusiasm of the audience! They say that man fought for us and imperilled his life for us, and how loud the hurrah that follows hurrah! Wheu the Lord .Jesus Christ shall at last stand out before the multitudes of the redeemed of heaven, and we meet Him face to face, and feel that he was wounded in the head, and wounded in the hands, and wounded in the feet, and wounded in the side for us, do you not think we will be overwhelmed? We will sit some time gazing in silence, until some leader amidst the white-robed choir shall lift the baton of light, and give the signal that it is time to wake the song of jubilee, and all heaven will break forth into "Hosanna! Hosanna! Worthy the lamb that was slain."

I calculate further the value of the soul by the value that has been paid for it. In St. Petersburg there is a diamand that the Government paid $200,000 for. "Well," you say, "it must have a very valuable one or the Government would not have paid $200,000 for it." I want you to see what my soul is worth, and what your soul is worth, by seeing what has been paid for it. For that immortal' soul, the richest blood that was ever shed, the deepest groan that was ever uttered, all the griefs of earth compressed into one tear, all the sufferings of earth gathered into one rapier of pain and struck through His Holy Heart --does it not imply tremendous value? I urge also the value of the soul for the home that has been fitted up for in the future. Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the things that God hath prepared for them that love and serve Him. To consistently live in that "City," the soul of mail would require to be endowed with faculties little .short of Divine. To worship anything less than the highest is to prostitute the use of the soul; to mar the Divine in man, to admit the inherent inferiority of our desires and aims. Nothing short of a perfect God can satisfv such a soul, and— We've the whole value of nature mine That were an offering far too small.