HARVEST FESTIVAL IN TIME OF WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 March 1916, Page 8

HARVEST FESTIVAL IN TIME OF WAR.

SERMOX PREACHED BY REV. A. H. COLVILE, M.A.. AT ST. MA-HY'S CHURCH, XEW PLYMOUTH, on SUNDAY, MARCH 5. "Veruy, verily, I say unto you, except a grain of wheat fall into tlie greuni and die. it abidoth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit.'' —St. J»ku, xii., 24. A harvest festival in time of war—what is its significance? What thought slienld it suggest? What truth should it bring home to us? Of what great law does it remind us of? Surely this, the thought that our Lord suggested to His disciples when they were on the tiptoe of .expectation concerning the coming of the kingdom, and imagined that the old triumphs over Syria and Moab and Egypt and Assyria were to be crowned for the soul by a victory over the Soman eagle, the truth that He gave them to which they vainly tried to shut the eves of their understanding, the law that he announced so emphatically in the words of the text in the law of real fruitfulness: "Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die. it almleth alone, but if it. d,ie it bringeth forth much fruit." That must be tie firstithought for us to-day—apparently hard, in reality most "comfortable"—the law of fruitfulness. It is what nature teaches, what nature enforces—toil and suffering and apparent death first, and then the harvest. All nature's laws are hut shadows of eternal laws. Just as the food we eat comes by the hand of nature that toils and struggles, just as. the gplden corn and the flowers scattered through the meadows are the result of nature's throes and' pangs, just as through death it is that lier abundant life comes, so it is in the world at large—no power comes but on condition of suffering, and the only real power is that which comes out of suffering. There arc no short cuts to success, no splendid achievements without pain in preparation, no gains without risks; the law of sacrifice runs through everything. The seed is' there in each man's life, a certain power cast into Him bv God. It is in you and it is in me. And if we leave it to itself and take no heed of it and no care for it it ''"mains unproductive. Kept f6r self, hidden away, isolated, it is useless; there must be work and suffering. and what St. Paul calls "a daily death," if there is to be a harvest, if that seed, that power cast into man's life by Rod is to bring forth much fruit. We most of us recognise that this law governs all intellectual achievement. We look at some man of genius and say, "What brilliant gifts he possesses; what marvellous brains." But the longer we look, the nearer we live to him, the clearer we understand that his power comes very largely from self-denial and industry. The man who endures most and strive? most and toils most is the man who makes his genius a real success, and without hard work and patient endurance no man will ever bring his natural gifts to perfection. Xo doubt natural gifts count for something, but the highest natural gifts, without selfdenial, without the power -if working while others are playing, abide alone, never effect anything—there is no harvest. So, too, as regards influencing others as a teacher, whatever truth a. man may have to contribute to the enlightenment of his fellow-creatures, bo it moral or spiritual or historical, 01 scientific or mathematical, lie will teach it to some effect just so far as he has toiled, agonised over it until lie made it his own. Dr. Arnold, the famous headmaster of Rugbv, was once asked why hr. took the trouble to prepare the Virgil lesson he was going to give the boys next day when he knew his Virgil from end to end. He replied, "[ will give my boys to drink from a running stream, not from a stagnant pool." Whatever gifts of intellect you have, mr friends, you will only keep' them bright and useful to others by constant work and thought and industry that other people may know nothing about; it is one, may say. in the long hours of selfdenial, of headaches, and,nerve-worries, and brain-fag—when you steadily restrain your impulse to" throw it up and go out and enjoy yourself—it is through them that the harvest comes, that the power cast into yon by God will bring forth much fruit, and that is what St. Paul meant when he said "I die daily." And the same law is triumphant in the spiritual life. There were religious men and women of our Lord's day caught in the net of formalism—to whom rules, prohibitions, extevnnlisms meant religion. Such religion, said our Lord, has no harvest, brings forth no fruit—only the law of sacrifice will win through to victory, and having said so He passed on to the Cross to emphasise and deepen

His lesson. 0»ly ia pain and sorrow could even His pure a.nd spotless life bring forth much fruit. Strange that it should be so: only the Cross, only the agony and tears and blood convinces the worli of the truth of His life aad mission. So, too, with us. If we would really know God and experieace the joy and glow and thrill of our religion. if wo are to have ours here, we must illustrate the same law, go through tlie same experience, we must "die daily," crucify our self-will and selflove every day of our life, check our tempers, chain up our passions, curb our tongues—''crucify'' and crucifixion ia a slow, painful, weary business, yet onW so will the harvest come. What do you suppose is the secret of that winning power wo see in some people that makes their religion so lovable, that spiritual el'orni that brings forth much fruit iH j r own souls and the souls of others! . ..ii-ly it is no mere matter of temperament. My friends, it is gained in the awful hours of struggle with well-nigh overmastering temptation, iu the dreary moments of self-discipline and self-huni-liation, in the sustained fatigue and weariness of long communion with fiorf. the bracing of oneself again and agais to hard, unwelcome duty. So the spiritual power cast into us by fiod dies daily, and because it dies it brings forth much fruit. "He that goeth on his way weeping, bearing within him the good seed of Rod, shall doubtless come again with joy and bring his sheaves with him.

And so as at our harvest festival we remember our brethren who are fighting, struggling .enduring, dying to-day, we can think of that gi'eat law of fruitfulness with a thrill of comfort. They are dying for us that the spiritual harvest of the world may be full and plenteous, Through suffering and death they go to Clod, bearing their sheaves with them. That thought we have just expressed in the words of the hvmn, "Yea. even now they ripen in sunny Paradise." A modern Australian poet has given us the same thought in fine language: "Why do you grieve for us who lie At our lordly ease by the Dardanelles? Vie have no need for tears or sighs, We who passed in the heat of fight Into the soft Elysia.n light, Proud of our part in the great emprise. We are content, we bad our day. Brief but splendid, crowned with power And brimming with action, every hour Shone with a glory none can gainsay. How can you grieve? We are not alone; There are other graves by the Dardanelles. -Veil whom immortal Homer sang Come to our ghostly camp-fires' glow, Greet us as brothers, and tell us' 'Lo, So to our deeds old Troy rang.' Thus will the ages beyond our ken Turn to our story, and having read, Will say with proudlv Uncovered head And reverent breath, 'O, God, they were men.'" They have learned the great law of fruitfulness—no harvest without pain and suffering and death. May their sacrifice not be in vain. May the world reap the harvest they have sown, and may our thankfulness to-da.vl for all that God has done for us, for the good seed, the seed of spiritual power that he has sown in our lives, may that thankfulness teach us that only by the daily death, the daily denial of self and the daily bearing of the cross, will the hardest of our lives be full and acceptable to God.