SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 March 1916, Page 9

SUNDAY READING.

: THE LOST INSTINCT. £ERMON PREACHED BY REV. A. H. COLVILLE, M.A., in St. Mary's Church, New Plymouth, oh Sunday, Sebmary 27. "Tea. the stork in the heaven know, eth.. her appointed times, and ths swallow and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people know nptjhe judgment of the Lord." —Jer. viii., 7. Po said Jeremiah, the most unnopular of all the prophets, unpopular because he was regarded hy the people as a pessimist, because he uttered warnings and prophecies.' which, though events proved tiaem absolutely true, were not at all to the taste of his countrymen. His repeated • assertions that thev had forgotten God and would suffer for it; his reiterated summons to them to come ont of their indifference and slackness l to a se.hse of the seriousness of life; the manner in which he rubbed in the fact that they were on the way to lose the inheritance *f their fathers, made the people of hi* time very bitter against hiln. 1 dare.aajr he didnt have much tatt. I *«re eay he did speak rather ruthlesMy-4*e so often make this absenceof tftp* a reason for disregarding warnings »M putting aside the words of tone tree friends; but there is a time • for What we call "tact," and there is a time for plain speaking: and a great national; crisis demands hard and straight talk if indeed it demands much talk at all. And that straight talk is what Jeremiah gave t the people. Here in the words of the test he suggests, or rather hammers in,aflew thought which ought to have got a grip on their minds. He the people irith the birds of the air, very much to the advantage of the latter*' "Yea, the stork knoweth her appointed times,; and the swallow and the crane observe the time of their coming, bnt my people know not the ju3gment,of the Lord." Like so many of the Old Testament prophets, like Jesus Christ Himself, and St. Francis of Assisi after Him, Jeremiah had a great love for the birds, and nften drew lessons from them, e.g., in his prophecies of the coming desolation he more than OBCe refers to the absence of birds es part of the mournful picture the land would present when the enemy had laid its waste. And here, when he contemplates the apparent insensibility of man to God,he is struck by the wonderful instinct displayed by the birds in Ihi»'r migration, the < autnal timing of their flight over the sea when a miscalr<Ution would have fatal results, the finding of their way across continents and oceans, and the endurance displayed where great distaftees are covered' at high' speed- without .rest or food.. In . Palestine..-**, in- England, the spring brought flocks-of .birds, from ether countries far the -breeding season. The species mentioned-in. .the text appeared with great regularity..and suddenness, • a if onecommon -impulse moved then all. We.speak.pf,this as instinct, and I have read that, what teens this instinct alive is a, memory of the land of their birth to.-wjijch- the breeding impulse prnmnts them to return, for while it is the old Lirds. who frequently move first at the nutumn migration, it is generally the young, birds who lead the way nack in the sprjng. There is therefore something behind instinct, and that samething is what we speak of as homesickness—the longing to get hack homo. The prophet has here seized upon a point which has occurred to many jlhera, viz., tho SUPERIORITY OP ANIMAL INSfTINCT to hvxa* -5«.-n The primitive man "pr&Wppcv! mjma'vs. and really it was i t inrprisi,.;:. ?ii- In many things they n-j*c have c-nir£ kupenor to himself. r A.'' ' ' ~*c*rn 7rnichm«» «rt« said, '"he •»...*. y.o ..f mm ifo , are j aj•i.;v. '•••-y.r '■">»« 7 '•■ -fc of then "<oyalty, 'W<-' ..'•••-.;• ->' u- ii injury, jv 1 -fj f".- .:;,!- i 0 s m , H wnen "--•<. i-.v "-v. ill* .urnpbet spoke "»• t'.i i «-> \z:.t tfij» birds because it -" ' >'♦ ■'••*•• v.-.i:Jerfu! that while .;>•— » "t" ihei- "—-ling instinct the t.ioi'.! r' r >•: th» ; r.:. Here was a }'nr c" html v;iger: ii was 4c if the wirtir.- i.'Jnds ".'•"'-er.-Hywerobeginning rr nir {■;,- *-"d bvt t><ere was no in«';t...±;, - t«r<-'-\ ti> Go.j. no inward •.rrtmntlry o: il:r heart to seek unto ■:;,« «r j,;i;i.i -•. ':.': -. f*- tie soul's flight '.■ ;'»• si.ivr.iii <-" -•.curity tf His arras. f ■ 0..,.:1-i ► :-<c.vl ,\ have nerished out *-.*' the lar.d. aii Ciit something wis no- •-.:,«.. .trr \.', ? :«ri"«l nor verv"big," in sl;r Amcretn >.sse of the word. It <■■>* iuit i'f invole elementary instinct fo>- Ccd. r^at >* what had gone. Is ;f m kn-dav? Man prides himself on !•••« '.Jitellect bping so vastly superior to that of (he lower animals, and there is nor? "intellect" in the world than ever there was; but what about instinct? There are some things, mv friends, for wliii-Ii intellect by itself is utterlv inRilroiute, and the chief of these things i-i tli<> knowlcdde of God and of His will and of His love. Xow. what must strike any thoughtful person is the apparent ease with which we can lose our instinct for Ood. We are, e.g., sometimes seared away from religion by a stupid intellectual bogey which only needs to be steadily looked at to be demolished. Often when a :man is quite young he allows some crude intellectual doubt to rob him of his instinct, and just because he is frightened of-the appeal from reason to instinct he Jets that doubt and others that follow in its train keep him in exile from God all his.life here. Again, the pressure of social change, the merest alteration in habits seesss enough to weaken the inafinct for God. This especially applies %a New Zealand. People move from one jilace to another and allow the religious observances of a life-time to lapse. I have noticed this often wfth families Who come out from Home. Good churchpeople in England, they often drop jjyerything religious when they come out here. Put so it is, too, with the people who move_ about so freely in this coun'irv. "I think I'll give myself a bit of ji rest now," is what one often hears from someone who has just come here from another town where he has been a .oyal churchman and a good worker. T think I'll give my instinct for God ,i bit of a re3t." Dangerous, disastrous, Weakening. "Oh!" but some people say, you clergy are always confusing relidon with religious observance, and think hat because a roan gives up hiß church ' herefore he gives up religion." My Tienda, the truth iB that without idenifving the two, there is an undoubted delation' between them. To put your ; ' deliberately out of touch with relijious observa.nce is to put yourself out ' If touch ' with religions life and to reakeu the religious instinct, and it h , ft often the next generation that eul-1

I remember at the time I first came out to New Zealand an outburst cf indignation because a well-known bishop had referred to "pagans" in connections with some of the people of this country. I could not then understand the indignation, because I had Just come from a land crowded with pasais, who would not be indignant in tin; icast .it l:eJiig called pagans, and aftev sevon years 1 experience of this country the. bishop's words seemed the veriest commonplace. Says Dr. Orchard, a well-known Nonconformist minister at Home: "We have a vast population growing up amongst us that knows less about God than could be found in an average town in China or village in Uganda." It is a generation that is suffering from the SLACKENING OF THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT in their fathers, and it is mere humbug and special nleadin? to sav that religions nbservsnee has nothing tn ,lo with the keeping alive of the .religions instinct. I ssy "snecial Dleadin"." because at the bark of"it all is pure selfishness and indifference; not hostility to religion—that would be far more healthy—but' just indifference. Religion is tolerated as any other personal idiosvncracv is tolerated, and looked upon where it exists as a sort nf hobhv calling for no more remark than the collecting of stamps or being interested in the cultivation ol a garden—is not that the sort nf attitude a man drifts into when he gives up his church ? Dnn't tell me. that the w»man who sets off for a Sunday picnic is keeping her religious instinct as streng and alert a-s she who comes to her Cemmnnien in the house of God; don't tell me that, because it isn't common sense. No, my friends; however we may account fer it. we are bound to admit that it is fatallv easy to lose one's infttinet for God. and withaut that instinct, as my text says, how can we understand wliat is so all-important in these days—"the judgment of the Lerd." ie.. the nurpose of Almighty God in His ruling of the world?

But let as realise, my friends, that this apparent loss of the religi«us instinct is not a real loss, not a permanent loss. Man has smothered it in his own soul by materialism, buried it out of sight under heaps of pleasures and lusts and ambitions, but it is there, and, as with the birds, it needs the tug «f homesickness to bring it to life again. The world is feeling at this moment the grip of winter: the hard frost of poverty is beginning to nip: the chill winds of bereavement and desolation' are sweeping over the earth, .'.rid many heart* are ichinj; Aye, even in this corner of the world we have felt the touch of winle>. There has been partings' with frieads, and aching anxieties, and bitter tears shed in secret for those who will never come back—the touch ef winter aiiu those who have been touched, have they not felt the first tug of home-sick-ness, the stirring of the instinct for God and_ fer His peace that the wer'd cannot give them? And that is surely "the judgment of the Lord"; the purpose of our Father is using this war as nart of His government of the world. It is to call us home again. Do we recognise it even now, God's judgment, God's purpose? We all recognise and admire the sacrifice air «oldiers have made. Do we understand all that they are doing? Fighting that a great cause way be triumphant? Yes: hut they are 'also bearing the sins of the world. They are suffering for »ur past indifference and neglect of God. for »ur materialism and unfaith, for our lust for pleasure and comfort. We should be m«re anxious for our own souls than for theirs, for they are hearing our transgressions. Shall it be in vain? Mv friends, if we are to come back to God it must be by the way He has appointed, through Jesus Christ—i.e., we must use the instinct of penitence and the longing for forgiveness which He has implanted within us, and that is what our Bishop reminds us of when he urges that this Lent should be begun in HUMILIATION AND CONFESSION. We must not be distracted by the thought of the greater sin of others. Whatever the heavier guilt of the enemy, whatever the atrocities of the foe, we would do well to enquire how those old Hebrew prophets would have dealt with the situation. The Assyrians were not a very humane foe, the. Chaldaeans were not particularly chivalrous in warfare, yet it was of the sins of their own people that the prophets spoke. The adversity of Israel was the call of God to repentance and return. And so it is with us. and it is when we understand this that the while thing will come to an end. The war will really end. net when politicians see a way nf peace, net when the soldiers have finallv succeeded or finally failed, but wh»n God's lesson has been learned, and "My people know the purpose of God." What will truly save us from ourselves is a heartfelt repentance, and that not onlv for vice, in-(.-...t,,,,, otvl tlio rici>lii'» of outward religion, but for that fatal sin in the soul of man —the attentat to leave God out of our life, the deliberate smothering of the instinct for Him; and there is the undoubted mission of the Church to lead us both in penitence and prayer back to the heart of God.

My friends, what we arc really fightincr for to-day is for something that fighting alone never yet won. and never will win. What we arp fighting for is real peace; not just a, breathing space in which we can rest and look about us; not the sort of peace we had before the war, with all its restlessness and disquiet, its bitter industrial disputes and foolish political games, its feverish pursuit of money and pleasure, and its false standards of position and honor. What we all need is the true peace within and the true liberty of soul: the peace of God which passes man's intellect but does not elude his instinct; the true liberty which cannot be attained by the laws of man. but in obedience to God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And, my friends, if I did not believe that day of peace and liberty was coining I should despair. But Ido believe. Be it near or be it far off, the day will come, when like the birds who begin to gather together before they take to flight, so touched by a change in the atmosphere of the world, men \vill begin to draw together in penitence and prayer. Then the way will suddenly seem clear, and the, passion for home and God will overwhelm all other considerations. Can we do anything to -hasten the day? Yes; just as with the birds when they are touched by homesickness, a few daring ones set off before the rest, so the absolute yielding of one soul to God at this time will begin to stir old instincts all around, and then, please God, with a great rush we shall see men migrate for the land of faith and wing their way to their ancient home in God.