DAY OF INTERCESSION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 170, 4 January 1915, Page 6

DAY OF INTERCESSION.

SPECIAL SERVICES. 1 THE VICAR AT ST.".MARY'S. ' * At St Mary's Church lust evening the j viear (Rev. A. 11. Colvilc) preached a special sermon in connection with the i war. He .took for his text — "We went through lire ami water, hut j thou biouglilcsl us out into a wealthy , placc.'Tskuu 10 —12, ami said:— t .All over our gnat Empire this first Sunday of 11110 is being observed as a j day of humiliation and intercession in ( connection with the war. There is something wonderful, something that c stirs the imagination in the idea of a i whole Empire on its knees before God i on the first Sunday .of -a new year i humble confession of past sins and neg- i lect, in prayer for forgiveness and re- i storation. But while our feelings are .- stirred and our sense of dramatic fitness ( (if 1 may put it so) is satisfied, the ; question conies to us—to the thought- ] ful among us at any rate—what does I a day of humiliation and confession t really mean 7 Do we need it? What does c it signify? Does it mean, e.g., that be- i cause we have as a nation sinned against ( f!od and neglected Ilim, that therefore \ God is punishing us by sending us tho i calamity of war, that the sadness of j many hearts, the ruin of many homes \ to-day is God's retribution for our sins, f and unless we creave humbly to Ilim in i repentance worse things may happen to I :us? I don't believe it. We entered into 1 this war with a clear conscience as to l our own part in it. We should have 1 been indeed humiliated in our own a eyes and dishonored in the eyes of the ( world if we had kept out of it and ( chosen the path of ease and safety. ( How then can we look upon it as a « punishment? If all suffering be a sign f of God's wrath and displeasure then i indeed v. ben vve visit the hospital or sit I by a friend's sick bed our sadness will be I intensified by the knowledge that those 1 sufferers were sinners greater than our- I selves, greater than others, for that they f were feeling the heavy hand of God's l vengeance. "Xuv," said Jesus Christ to i His disciples', who had very much that i idea, "neither did this man sin nor his 1 parents that he was bcrn blind, but that 1 the works of God might be manifested, t Those IS upon whom the tower of Sol- i oam fell, thinkest thou that they were 1 sinners above all those who dwelt at 1 Jerusalem? I tell ye nay." It is not s e.b., that the Belgians were ninncrs < above all other nations of the world 1 that their land is desolate to-day—but < that the works of God might ultimately ' be manifested. So too with us. The oh- 1 jeet of all God's discipline is remedial, i His will is to bring us out into a weal- < thier place than we dwelt in before— 1 wealthier in the deepest sense of tho < word— a wealthy place. I.e. a state of ' greater spiritual intensity, of broader ,' sympathies, of higher and truer 15 and more satisfying ideals than we pos- ] sessed before. Now a time of humiliation 1 and intercession is a preparation for the 1 day when by God's grace we shall come < into that wealthy place, it is indeed the < essential condition of ever getting there, for let us note this—without a real turn- ' ing to God, without a definite desire to get rid of the frivolity of materialism, < slackness, love of comfort and deifica- ' tion, of pleasure in which we were living there will be no wcaltTiy place for in, and God's discipline will have failed in ' its purpose. The Empire may become a little fatter as the result of the war ' but not one bit greater, and this war : will simply lead, as in very many in- : stances the Koer war did, to ? reaction towards coarseness and vulgarity, and sensuality in which the last slat? is worse than the first. We need not oiu but many days of humiliation and intercession, in which wc may "remcmbi r ourselves to turn to the Lor-J «,;t fiod" that His loving purpose for us may bearits fruit in our individual lives «:■ 1 i:i the life of the nation. ''Wc went through fire and water." In the words of the text the psalmist decsribes a common human experience. By ''fire and I' water" he means the extremity of trouble or pain—when it seems that all that is beautiful in life is consumed as by a fierce fire when hope and confidence j are swallowed tip in a flood of cruel j waters. Now one often \..:\vs of the beneficicnt effect of t: _'ule upon the human heart and mind The discipline again is as necessary for the national as the individual soul. Why they should be necessary we don't know, ilt is simply a fact that we can't deny. The Cross is the ladder upon which the soul mounts to Glory, and without it is no spiritual gain but just the other way about. Have a good time in the world and you are apt to forget God. Let all go well with the outer man and the inner man is starved. You know quite well that it is true, though you may not like to be reminded of it. Now that is what has been happening to the nations. Pride, vain-glory, unspirituality have been manifest everywhere, stretching even to this little corner of the Empire. And now the day of trouble and pain has come to us, compelling us to look at life with new eyes—and because we live so far away and the war has made comparatively so little difference to us—we do need discipline, pain and humiliation if we as a nation are to remember ourselves and turn to the Lord our God. Therefore, though God does not send us this war to punish us, He has a purpose for us, which He is working out through it, and to which we must respond. Eor this we know too that it does not follow that all trouble results in good to the person or nation that suffers & We might go through fire and water without coming out into any wealthy place. As regards nations this, has happened in the history of the world over and over again. Poland had her great days, when John Sobieski saved all Europe under the walls of Vienna from the conquering advance of the Turk. I don't think it is generally known with the constant shifting of the balance of power and the rise and fall of nations, it is difficult to realise that not so very long ago—less than 40U years—it was the King of Poland and the cynical treatment of that country by the three Christian powers, Russia, Germany and Austria, and the quality of that ancient race has not improved under discipline and there has been no re-awakening of the national soul of Poland. Again, the Armenians are not at all remarkable for fiuencs and loftiness of soul, but assured! .' tliey have suffered enough if suffering alone could do it. They have t |,ii! ' through fire and water with a vengeance but there has been no Wealthy place beyond for them to enjoy. And the same tiling has often been true of the individual. Xot every broken heart results iu the saving of the so'd. Trouble may crush a weak man ae-u harden a strong one. You know that it is so. T have known, and you have known, of weak men who have tried to drown their pain of mind and anguish of soul in drink, whom misfortune I.as simply demoralised. I have known a man vindictively punished by the world, bv soi-ietv. after a time utterly lose heait, shake' his list at the world and at Cod Himself and let himself go to ■ the bad utterly. Oscar Wilde when he wrote Do Profundi* in pri.-on believed that the fire and water through which he had gone would bring him to the wealthy place of power and beauty in his work and character, but the discipline failed and he soon sank into utter demoralisiilion. So you see it does not follow al all that oil her individually or collectively mankind is the bitter lor trouble and anguish of heart. It might

have exactly the opposite effect. There is what St. Paul culls ''The sorrow of the world that worketh death," which means that a man may so completely limit his horizoji to this world and its goods and pleasures that when he loses those goods and pleasures, when something occurs to rob him of them, well, all is over—just that life is finished—he mourns for what he has lost with eyes fixed on the ground; the day of humiliation is no use to him "for tho sorrow of the world worketh death" in his life. And the. day of humiliation will hi' no use to us as a nation if our thoughts are bound by material things •i connection with this war. An Englishman, at home might mourn because the war has robbed him of his son, has

•■!•;,' pi"d his business, has increased his cost of living and has made his life more diliicuit in a thousand ways; he might mourn in this way and become merely gloomy or angry and not be in the least degree ennobled by hia mourning. Or lie may remember himself and turn to the Lord, and think or others and pray for others, and bravely accept the discipline of suffering for himself, aye and even learn to rejoice ' that lie is counted worthy to take a share in his country's pain, and so grow out of his past selfishness and bitterness and come into a bigger, broader, deeper healthier life—"a wealthy place," where perhaps for the first time he can really see God and feel his presence. And so the fire and water through j which he has passed cleanses and puri- ] fies his soul. For God makes all the difference. If we are sure of God and know that we belong to Him and can ! keep a simple faith in His love in the I day of humiliation then all is well. The lire of God will burn away the bad stuff of materialism that had grown over our souls and His water-flood will drown our selfishness until it sinks fathoms deep and leaves us free to serve Him and eur fellow creatures. This, my friends, is what is actually happening to- I day. The fire and water is already bringing Jniany souls into a wealthy place. Have you read of how the Chief llabbi of Lyons met hi; death on the battlefield quite recently. This brave servant of God, like many of the clergy of our own faith, had penetrated rigiit into the tiring lin.i (:> those of his own ' faith who were wounded and dying. One \ poor Roman Catholic soldier desperately hurt, and Hearing his last moments, took him for a priest of his own church, and begged him to hold a crucifix before his glazing eyes and give him absolu- ' tion. Instead of explaining who he was and passing on that Jewish Rabbi did exactly what he. was asked to do. He held the cross before that wounded soldier till he died, whispering words of hope and comfort in the name of God. But before he could quit the scene of his i merciful and noble service he was shot dead, and I say he could not have died ; better, and I am sure that no departed Christian to-night stands nearer to our blessed Lord than he. A Jew himself, he held the symbol of the Christian faith—of the faith wdiosc adherents had persecuted and harassed the people of his own race for more than eighteen hundred years—'before the gaze of a Christian passing through the gates of death. He might justly have regarded that cross as the symbol of all that was most hateful and grievous. But he was above that feeling in the presence of a great need and of the larger truth which the Cross signifies. And by the Cross his own soul rose to the wealthy place to partake of the everlasting joy of the Lord. My friends, let us all join together on this day of humiliation and intercession iu prayer that God's discipline of suffering may do its real work in the world and in our own lives; that we may all come through fire and water to the wealthy place. Let us, from the. example I have, just quoted, put away all meanness of soul in.religion as in everything else, and pray that we may escape the humiliation that narrows and degrades, ihat comes of thinking only of ourselves i*nd Qf our petty needs, and that the true humiliation may be ours; that while it brings to us the remembrance of our own sins and shortcomings and neglect in the past, brings at the same time the love of God near to us, the love that will uphold and sustain us in the day of suffering and sorrow and take us through fire and water out into the wealthy place, to the knowledge of life immortal and the joy in God, the joy that knows no end