SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 15 January 1916, Page 9

SUNDAY READING

THE NEW VEAR'S THOUGHT. SERMON preached by the REV. A. 11. COI.VM.B, M.A., on the first Sunday in the New Year. "i"fe is not ashamed to call them brethren."—Hebrews, ii.-11. liveryone lias heard the story of the mutineers of the "Bounty," and of the interesting community they established on an island in the Pacific some generations ago. The story is thai in a lit of sutler at some piece of injustice v real or imaginary, on the part of their superior officers, the crew of the Bounty seized the ship, set adrift the captain and those faithful to him in a amall boat, and then sailed oil' with the vessel. They did not dare to return to civilisation, so they found out an island, far out of the track of European vessels, and settled there, married native wives, and eventually addressed themselves to the task of organising a self-governing society. The endeavor proved successful. The children born on the island were given a decent education, and were trained in a simple religion and were virtuously brought up. But—and here is the point—they were completely isolated. It was not until many years afterwards, when they had grown up to be men and women, that a British ship discovered their abode and brought them into touch with the great world. TTow wonderful it must have been to those simple islanders to find that there really was such a world! They had heard about it from their fathers. They had been taught to read the few books that had 'been brought ashore from the ■liounty. They had probably talked much and often of the land whence their fathers came, but, they had never seen it and could not realise it in any effective way, though it was the source of all the good they had known. The only home they had ever known was ■this Pacific island, and those who had belonged originally to the mysterious home, the greater home, beyond the seas, called England, were all dead. And now the coming of the ship means that England was real and not a dream What they had "been doing up to then was to make the best of their surroundings, to adapt themselves to their own -local conditions. Tliey had lmd no idea of any other surroundings and conditions except as described to them by their forefathers, who could never quite 'succeed in making them understand what their eyes had never looked on, My friends, are we not in very similar circumstance 3 in tins world with regard to that greater world which we cannot see, but which in reality is the

SOURCE OF ALL THE IDEALISM WE POSSESS? We try to make the moat of our lives here; wc adapt ourselves closely to local conditions—very closely, some of us. This world and its needs, its sorrows and. its joys surround lis, pressing on us insistently; and it is sometimes hard to believe that any other world is real, that any other life is more than a dream, just as it was hard for those islanders to believe that there was a greater world and a larger life beyond the horizon. All tlfe great long thoughts that .men think here, and all the good

deeds tliat they do, the sacrifices they make, their readiness to give their lives ■for « great cause, their instinct for God and immortality, as f said, all their idealism conies to them insensibly out of this other world beyond the horizon which they cannot see, from what other life of which titis one is bnl a fragmoilt, just as that island in the Pacific war, but a tra;;ment of the mighty world over the horizon. And on Christmas Hay tin; ship conies in. On Christmas Day'this oilier world is made real io us. The coming of the ship links us on to the eternal world ami makes us feci fhat we arc part of it. Jesus Christ was made in (he likeness of men. He was born ia the very humblest conditions in a stable at lieilileliem, but though fie was born [here, He did not begin His life there. lie lived with Cod before the foundation of the world. As He, the humblest of men, said of Himself, "Before Abraham £ am.'

TIIK PERSONALITY UF CIIIUST. My friends we shall never even begin lo understand Jesus if we try to force His personality into the same mould as oilier human beings. We can only understand, and take to ourselves what He brings, by believing that though He came through the door by which all cuter, and left through the'gules by which all must go, yet He came a Kcing from a higher Sphere, for the definite purpose of bringing the spiritual into the material, of making man realise his own destiny, to what world, to what life be l-eally belonged, anil therefore lie took our nature upon Him, and though being in the form of Cod, w'as made in the likeness of men .that all men might see and understand. I know that there are some people to-day who are very shv about this view, and declare that it puts a gulf between Jesus and ourselves. Jlv friends, it does nothing of the kind, and I am sure that it is a great mistake to try to diminish the divine greatness of Jesus in order to preserve IFis likeness to ordinary human beings. As you know, there is a. class of person ill the world whose impulse is always to belittle the excellence of others, for in doing that they find a certain consolation for teliir own feebleness. Make a great, man look smaller, and the difference between yourself and him does not appear so much. My friends, it is a great mistake always; destroy heroworship, and life becomes poorer and thinner, and much of the inspiration and desire for progess is taken out of it; v and I am sure it is doubly a mistake when at Christmas time we welcome our Lord from Ilcaven into our own little world. To think of Jesus "He was a much better man than I, I must try to be more like Him, and that is all," is to lose all inspiration of the gospel, all the dynamic power, the driving force that comes ,to us out of the unseen. It is as if the islanders had said when the British warship arrived, "Here is a bigger canoe that our own, we must build ours on that model, and that is all •• Why, it was the significance of the ship, where she came from and what she meant, and what she brought, even more than her wonderful destruction, that counted in their lives and transformed them. So as we came to

THE STABLE AT BETHLEHEM, as we gathered round that weak and helpless child, we give Him (lie highest honor that the Christian Church, that the deepest Christian experience lias ever given Him. "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living Cod," and then, yes, then we listened to "the glad tidings of great joy" wherein we who acknowledge Him as a different Being to ourselves, are claimed as His kindred. "My Father and a our Father, my God and your God." He is not ashamed to call us brethren, as England over the seas was not ashamed to call those islanders her sons. Oh, how far we are from being what He is, and yet lie came into the world to give us the power of being like Him. That is the appointed goal for us all. Hereafter, in the distant future, in the greater world, in the larger life, from the great leather-spirit in whom all lesser spirits live, for they are part of Him. He comes to tell us of our own greatness and of our future glory, just as that ship came over the horizon to reveal to those islanders their kinship with the great world beyond (lie seas, to touch them with the glory of the great Empire of which they were a part. Here, then, is a simple New Year's thought for us all—"My ship comes in." Christ comes not only to the world, not only to the Church, but to each individual soul. 111. your separate possession and mine. Your ship comes in today, and so does mine. What. does it mean to you? What does it bring you? Has your faith been getting weak and feeble? Have you been adapting yourself so closely to local conditions that you have been forgetting God? The Christ-ship brings you renewed power from the unseen, Have anxieties and disappointments numbed your heart and crushed your life? The ship brings yon courage and hope. Does life seem barren, and you feel useless aiuT'not much good to anyone? There is a cargo of precious jewels in that ship sparkling with opportunities of daily service? Have you sinned against God and man and conscience is haunting you, and you have gloomy thoughts about yourself at the very start of this new year? The ship from the unseen brings you what 110 vessel of our own construction could ever bring us, the promise of a full and free forgiveness. Aye, and the greatest tiling of all, the most precious of all that ship's wonderful treasures, life for evermore. Life from over the sea came to the children of the mutineers with the coining of the. British ship. Life from beyond the horizon of this world comes to us with the coining of our Lord. Life that means 110 check to our progress, 110 cold arresting hand laid upon our lives, 110 stern voice crying in onr ears, ''thus far and 110 farther," no cutting short of earthly loves, 110 eternal partings. Who could give 11s ilii s great hope but He Who comes to us from another world, a different Being to ourselves, and yet claiming us as His kin, giving us His life, uniting us with the Father, He whose claim to enter closely, intimately, vitally into our daily lives rests 011 this—lthat ''He is not ashamed to call us brethren."