SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 February 1916, Page 9

SUNDAY READING.

THE POWER OF RESTRAINT. SERMON PREACHED BY REV. A. H. COLVILE, M.A., at St. Mary's Church, New Plymouth, on Sunday, February 13. "And the Lord said unto Gideon, 'By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you.'"—Judges vii., 7. The old story of how Gideon delivered his people from the yoke of the Midianites had always a great fascination for me, and to read the account of it in the sixth and seventh chapters of Judges and in Stanley's "History of the Jewish Church" is to read something far more exciting and interesting than any novel yon can pick up in the library. But it is not my intention to tell you the whole story in full. I want you to fix your attention on that incident which is described in the somewhat peculiar words of the text, peculiar, that is, if one has never read and does not know the story. The words have a significance of their own, a lesson which we would do well to take to ourselves, and for that reason I have chosen them for my text this evening—"By the 300 men that lapped will 1 save you." Quality, not quantity, was the 'distinguishing feature of Gideon's successful revolt against the Midianites. He had originally thirty-two thousand men with him, and at the command of God. he deliberately proceeded to sift them and weed them out. The first step was to get rid of the slackers and cowards. A proclamation was made through the host, "Whoever is fearful and afraid let hnn depart." It reminds one of Henry V.'s proclamation on. the eve of the Battle of Agincourt: "He that hath no stomach for the fight, Let him depart; his passport shall be made, And crowns for convoy put into his pnr.-:c. We would not die in that man's company That feared his fellowship to die with ns."

In a modern army no one, I suppose, would dare to stir for fear of ridicule. But here the people had been crushed by many years of oppression and didn't feel like lighting. N 0 less than twentvtwo thousand took advantage of that permission. Certainly Gideon was better oil' without them. Then came a more searching test. The men, parched with thirst, were taken down to the river. Most, of them flung themselves at full length on the bank and sucked up the water with their mouths; a fewhad sufficient self-restraint to wait and scoop up the water with their hands, end these alone were chosen for the expedition. Three hundred men, temperate and self-controlled, were to be the deliverers of the nation. It was a. wonderful revelation of the purpose and mind of God and of His method of determining values, often so different from our own. The Lord said unto Gideon, "By the 309 men that lapped will I save you"; may it not well be that there is tlie same thought in the mind of God to-day—by the men and women of patience, self-restraint and moral strength will I redeem this nation?

And when I use tlio phrase "redeem this nations'' I am not at. this moment thinking of the war, and of that final victory over the enemy to which we all look forward. Last Sunday evening T fried to make it plain to yon that our final choice lay between Christ or Caesar, our sort, 01 Caosan,- the- Ood of a soft materialism, the embodiment of the spirit of pleasure and gain; and T pointed out that if we won (lie victory over nnr enemies only to reject Christ and set up this sort of Caesar as our ruler, our triumph would lie no pain to the nation nor to the ivorld. ff we choose Christ, and the kingdom of the spirit ivi; shall win a veal victory. Who. then, are the people who will bring this real victory about? That is the question we are face to face with to-day. For though we are all in God's hand's, and His never-failing Providence still orders all things, yet lie reaches man through man, and works His purpose in tiie world by the responsible beings He has made. Who, then, are the men and women who will he the (rue deliverers of the nation, whether they are actually in arms lighting for her right to exist, lighting to make the Christ-ideal possible, or whether thuir duty lies at home among their neighbors in'the wonderful security which by the blessing of (lod we enjoy in this country? What sort of people, soldiers and' civilians, will be our real saviours? And the Lord said unto Gideon, "Hy the 1100 that lapped 1 will save you." The saviours of the nation: The first thing we learn is that there need not necessarily be many of them. And in these days that seems a very hard lesson for people to get hold of. Our democratic habits, excellent as they are in the rough, have brought us to the npint of believing that numbers are the only real test, and that if a thing is sufficiently widely supported therefore it must be right. It is an absolutely fallacious standard. It contuses bigness with greatness, and numerical strength with moral strength. By that standard more than half the gains of history are really losses; the Christian religion itself is a huge mistake. By that standard the Jerusalem mob was right and the lonely Christ was wrong; by that standard the saints and martyrs were fools and their persecutors wise men. No, my friends; modern democracy has iriven us many good things, but it has also brought to us that implicit belief in mere numbers, and that contempt for minorities which over and over again has kept back the true progress of the nations. As the Dean of St. Paul's

has said, "The method of counting Tica<l= would be very good ii yon were sure itliat there was something in them." One might add, perhaps, ihat t!ie counting of hears would be an excellent method, if one could he sure that tiioae hearts were pure. There must lie moral (strength behind numerical strength if there is to-be real efficiency. Don't let us think for one moment that God is going to save this nation to-day by mere numbers. I cannot forrjeaf at [ this point from reminding you thai this modern belief in numbers is also !a danger to the Church. Our Lord 1-1 :;u----self 'hsrl little faith in them. Again and again our Master sifted and tested his} followers so as to got rid of ail who were merely and who would shirk the cross. With as uiv.eh nnfiir.eiiing severity as Gideon ho applied U-.zt after test, and often with this result—"they went back and walked no more with Him." 'lt was necessary, if I;'n work ?vere not to end witli Himself, that He should sift IBs follower;." '•i'or that gri&fc' frattjo \wit'lj Mtc'\fojli 'Kc had to"'tsi'£ i>P.SQ -}vtp"x-p%d s?£? ij.V.96selves and take m> the Gross.

'My friends, in these days we churchpeople, ministers especially, must beware of falling into the mistake of imagining that nnmoers mean strength. You will think, perhaps, that there is little enough danger of tlint in this country. Churches are poorly enough attended as a rule. But even so, how many who do attend our Church and profess to belong to it, are names and nothing more, and add no more to the strength of the Church than the amount they contribute to the oll'ertory '! We clergy have to be constantly on our guard against taking what may be called the "newspaper" view of the Church, i.e.. estimating its condition by mere numbers. We 'have to remember that it is not our mission to "fill the churches," but rather to filLsouls with light and life and love. not the big crowds that sometimes throng to a church, attracted by the music or the preaching, that are its true strength, but those—few it may be—who make their ehurehmanship mean something real and vital, who will deny self for their religion, and will recognise that they are called by Cod to a great spiritual adventure—these are the hope anil strength of the Church to-day. "And the Lord said unto Gideon. 'By the 300 that lapped \ will save yon.'" So we shall find, my friends, that our real saviours are those who make patriotism mean something real and vital, something more than froth and spume, something more than on which to hang their pleasures, who will deny self, the temperate, restrained, earnest-minded men and women who have "grown up," and have become actually and not only potentially the sons and daughters of God. There is in thcSe days something very significant in that old theological phrase, "the children of wrath." You are familiar with the phrase. The Church Catechism speaks of ns all as being by nature "children of wrath," and that phrase has been interpreted to mean that we are all born into the world under the wrath of God. This appalling theory that by our very birth we incur the Divine anger, and that apart from any voluntary wrong-doing we are under Cod's curse, I do not believe for one moment to lie true. "Children of wrath" does not mean children who provoke wrath, but children who are themselves wrathful. And in what sense? That is the point, The Greek word from which "wrath" is translated means,' in the first place, impulse, emotion, passion, and that is the most natural sense of the word here. We are by nature children of impulse, unrestrained, passionate, impatient, self-loving, but still potentially the sons of God. And we become actually sons of Cod when we use that power within us. that spiritual pow?r which was solemnly dedicated to God at our baptism; when we use it, I say, to restrain the natural impulses of self and self-love, the wayward, uncontrolled passions of the lower nature, and bravely and with strong patience put the weight of moral and spiritual power into our own lives and the lives of others. "By the .100 that lapped will I save you." It is this self-restraint, this ability to control the lower impulses and passion that is the great test, and is the. mark of the saviour. By such men, aye, and women, will God save this nation. Numbers won't do it. Many thousands of people are not yet grown up. They are, in no offensive sense of the phrase, just "children of wrath," creatures of impulse, plensers of themselves. Xot shirkers or cowards, the majority; I don't believe that for one moment. The strong strapping young men who roll up to the races in motor-care are not really cowards. If they wcy(} commandeered for service, as they ought to be, they would, I believe, prove just as good fighters as those who are now bearing the burden and heat of the day; but they, and thousands more, are as yet unfit for a. great spiritual adventure such as this war demand;,. They still throw themselves down full length on the bank, and greedily suck up great draughts oE pleasure, This terrible war, with all its problems, God's call—it may be God's last call—to the seriousness oE life, has not yet taught thousands of our pontile the great lesson of self-denial. The straws of "patriotic" race meetings and carnivals still show which way the wind, the gentlo breeze, is blowing. It was a striking coincidence, almost amusing, to open the paper on Thursday morning last and see in large type the heading:

"TAKANAKI AUTUMN MEETING." "SELF WINS."

But apart from all those little things, which, as I said, are mere indications, we may be quite sure of this, that Self ,will not win this war; Self will not win the victory for Christ, the great mural ,and spiritual victory on which the real future of our nation depends. "By the 300 that lapped will 1 save you." You know well, my friends, that I am no Puritan. I don't believe for one minute that it is God's will that we should go about the place with gloomy faces and give up all healthy sport and recreation. These things are necessary for us—yes, actually for our own moral and spiritual efficiency. The soldiers who followed to the light were not denied the water. Only—a distinction was made between them. That is the point. Those who could enjoy moderately, with self-restraint, were chosen; the greedy and undisciplined were rejected; and if we show ourselves greedy and undisciplined after self-enjuymenl then we shall not save the nation from what would be not much better than the German yoke—tlu- tyranny of Vanity Fair and the banishing out of life of all that is noble and great. Let us rather resist the temptation to follow the crowd like sheep wherever it may drift, and act like grown-up men and women, striving to become actually, as we are potentially, the sons and daughters of God, like Him in patience, in love, in sacrifice; controlling our impulses, gripping our passions with a strong and steady hand, and thus fitting ourselves at this crisis of our history to be of real use to our country, and to carry out the will and do the work of Him Who can by wa»y, or ty f?W, " * ' "" ' •■