SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 193, 23 January 1915, Page 6

SUNDAY READING.

THE RECRUIT. Notes of a sermon preached at tha 1 • r.'tist Church, New Plymouth, on Janu. .y 17, by the Rev. F. 11. Radford. '.'aking for his text Luke 22, 33: "Lord I am ready to go with Thee to prison and to death," the preacher said Peter's words touch right home to our consciousness if we insert one name and read "Lord Kitchener I am ready to go W'ith you etc.'" War is abhorent, unjust, inhuman, devilish. Shame to the Christian world there is still for the actual moment no better way of championing international right than by brutal fight. Such is the situation today. We reluctantly believe that every fit young man, tolerably free, should offer his services to the Empire, and we could wish this to be a recruiting address in a twofold sense. Never before has the world seen a volunteer army to to compare with our troops. To-day tens of thousands more are weighing the pros and cons. There is no more fit place to come to the solemn decision to enlist than in the sanctuary. It matters how recruits are made. Said a candidate for Trcntham to me, "I want to get out of this hole as quick as the devil can drive mej" Devil-driven recruits are not the best. Napoleon is credited with saying: ''ln war the moral is to the physical as three to one." Some years ago, in a railway train. Sir John French gave his opinion that Napoleon was strategically a greater general than Wellington. "Ah, then, who won Watcloo?" Quietly and reverently the general answered, "God won Waterloo." From every consideration it is pupremely imperative that men rally to the standard of the great Captain of our Salvation. It was given to Peter to literally go to prison and to death for Christ's sake. Every jecruit to the cross must face the bringing of "every thought into captivity to Christ, and the death of self-pleasing, and self-depeml-ence, to which the flesh clings, often costs more than death itself. What are the calls that make recruits to-day?

THE CALL <•••" ACTUAL AND UNAVOIDABLE CONFLICT.

In our peaceful, almost normal life, it is hard to evolve the ghastly carnage in Europe; relentless, continuing day by day. Tile day came when this was unavoidable for Britain. To have allowed the modern Goliath to defy unchallenged all the endeavoring ages have built up of broader brotherhood would have been, in the words of Lloyd George, "to admit that civilisation was a failure, tlie sceptre of right broken, and brute force once more enthroned among the ne<);ons." To let the stern fact and .unavoidableness of the conflict become poignantly real is to hear the call whiek silences all others. Whether we realize it o* not tlie war lords of Hell are in command of tremendous forces on the field of our human life In ceaseless unavoidable conflict the Lord Jesus Christ is leading on those who rally to His standard. Speaking of the "scrap of paper" that weighs more than all in the best interests of peace, the British Chancellor said in his great speech at Queen's Hall: "Have you any of thos;: little Treasury €1 notes? If you have, burn them, tliey are only scraps of paper. What are they made of? Rags. What are they worth ? The whole credit of the British Empire." Consider, behind the great realities our nation holds supreme, fidelity, integrity, honor, justice, there stands God. Perfect holiness, light on whom is no darkness at all. Perfect love; and therefore a "consuming fire." Surely to realise the fact and unavoidableness of the conflict is to hear the call to the cross of Christ.

THE CALL OF THE INTERESTS AT STAKE. Our homes and children, and children's children yet unborn. Think of the retreat from Antwerp with its "twenty miles of breaking hearts," and know the fate of the women and children of Britain with all the augment of bitter hatred, were Germany victorious. To realise this is to offer for the trenches. On the Christian warfare hang eternal issues. "Fear not them which kill the body, but arc not able to kill tiie soul; but rather fear him which is .able to destroy both soul and body in hell." "I'm not going to be made cold meat of"; I won't givo up my berth for soldier's pay." How much more the man who leaves exposed to all the relentless attacks of evil the naked soul interests of his own independent children, while he holds aloof from the Christian conflict, to indulge his lower nature —how much more worthy of the Avhit'.., feather and the coward brand, THE CALL OF THE MEN AT THE FRONT. Referring to the fact that the French will not undertake the transport of the wounded by day because of its supposed depressing effect on others, a young Scotchman in a Paris hospital says, "I can imagine no more powerful stimulant to the men at home than to see their chums brought back, having done all they knew to repulse the invader. A man must be coldhearted indeed who would be untouched by such a silent appeal. I've done what I could, mate, but they knocked me out. There's a blank space in the .firing line, just one blank space, and the fellows each side are having to fight extra hard else the enemy will break through. There are gaps in the Christian ranks, produced 'in two different ways. Some soldiers arc dropping out by death and some wounded by the fire of evil. Have you considered that this very Peter, cowering and cursing by the lire is a call to some more worthy recruit to take his place by the Master's side. That recreated Christian is a challenge to you to enlist and be true.

Hie finest thing; said of Belgium's illustrious sacrifice was this, "She saved France, she saved England, herself she could not save." On the ffravc of the noble Frenchman whose body was riddled by the fire of the Gorman ambush, he exposed, they wrote the words. '"He saved others; himself he could not sacrifice can nohow be more honored than by likening it to the man of Calvary. Not strong men alone, frail women and girls and little children inspired by the cross have "Followed in His train." Shall we follow? "He that is not for me is against me."