SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 293, 3 May 1913, Page 10

SUNDAY READING

A MIRROR OF HUMAN ACTIVITY. (A Sermon by the Rev. F, Hales). "Xow on the first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, wliik it was yet dark, unto the tomb, and seeth the stone taken away from the tomb. She runneth, therefore, and eometh to Simon Peter and to the other disciple, whom .Jesus loved . . and they ran both together."—.John 20, 1-10. In this remarkable fragment of Gospel history we have a mirror of human activity. Man is necessarily an active being: he lives in action and by it. Inactivity is virtually death. Wrong activity is misery. Right activity alone is true living. Hence the world is "full of labor." In this incident we see human activity inspired by strong love, existing under strong delusion, and ending in sad disappointment. The first thing that we notice in the incident is human activity inspired by strong love. What earnest activity we see here in Mary Magdalene, Peter, John, and the other disciples! One hurrying to the other, Peter and John hurrying to the tomb; Peter bounding into it, and carefully examining the linen. All the faculties of mind and body seem on the stretch. What prompted all this earnest activity? Love! Here, then, we see the law of love. It is a yearning for the presence of its object—Mary Magdalene and the disciples loved Christ. They had lost sight of their Lord for some days, and their longing for the sight of Him became irrepressible. Love evermore hungers for a sight of its object. It cries—"Come to me, Beloved, across the world and under, Hear you not my beating heart like breaking foam in thunder? Come and quench the burning By your great returning, Till I cool my fever in your dewdrenched eyes." Love will dare epidemics; it will cross stormy' oceajns; it will visfit distant lands in order to see and, if possible, clasp to its bosom its object. The great attraction of heaven is that we shall see Jesus as He is. "Let me be with Thee where Thou art, My Saviour, my eternal Friend." We notice here also the courage of love. It was a bold thing that Mary ■ But "strong love will face armies, and dare death in its most hideous forms. And we also see here the earnestness of love. Strong and sacred love alone is the power to let all the faculties of humanity into vigorous and harmonious action: "Love, only love can guide the creature Up to the Father-fount of nature; What were the soul did love forsake her?

Love guides the mortal to the Maker." In the second place, we see in this incident human activity existing under strong delusion. The disciples hurried forth in the morning before the break of day under the delusive impression that they would find Christ in the tomb. For this false impression they were blameable, for He had assured them that He would rise the third day. Their ignorance then was inexcusable. How much of the world's activity is put forth under illusory impressions? Men seem to be led by phantoms of the brain. One man goes forth to wealth in 'search of happiness, another to fame, another to sensual gratification. But when they have reached all these they find that true happiness is not there; like the Oriental traveller who burning With thirst, sees what he imagines to be water in the distance, but reaches the spot to find that he lias been deceived.Facts tell all men that there is 110 happiness for them outside the human soul, that it must well up from within, not stream into them from without. Facts tell all men that there is no true honor or dignity outside of them, that true greatness, real majesty consist in noble thought, high purposes and loyalty to the eternal laws of the universe, that to be great is to be good, and to be good is to conform to the moral imagine of God. In the last place, we see in this incident human activity ending in disappointment. "Then went in also that other disciple which came first to the tomb, and he saw and beheld .... then the disciples went away again to their home." They knew that all their efforts to fin'd Him had been put forth under a delusion. What sadness and darkness this discovery must have spread over their souls! They feTt that all their exertions had been lost labor. They felt, as Cowper expressed it, that they had been — "Letting down buckets into empty wells, And growing old with drawing nothing up." Of all the trials in dife disappointment is, probably, the most distressing. The man who tries to build a character without the aid of Christ is working under a delusion. The man who built the house on the sand was terribly disappointed when the storm eame. We are all engaged in character building. Arc we putting into these buildings hay, wood, stubble, or are we putting into them precious stones and gold? The hay, wood and stubble will burn when the reckoning time arrives, but the precious stones and the gold will last for ever. The storm of eternal realities will soon beat on every one of us; sheltered in Jesus Christ all will be well with us, but if we are wasting our opportunities now, the storm will soon overtake us and there will be none to help or shelter us. May every activity of our lives be governed by love for God and our fellow men.