SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 16 September 1916, Page 3

SUNDAY READING

"TO BE CONTINUED." 'SJEKMON"PREACHED J3Y REV. A. 11. COLVILE, M.A., Ttf'H.M. VETERANS AT ST. -MARY'S CHURCH, NEW PLYMOUTH, ON SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10. "I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou sihalt not go over thither."—Dent. IV., 34. Do you think that tho.se words sound sad and cruel and rather hopeless? Do tjiey -seem to you to lie. crammed full of the pathos of life, the pathos that is summed up in one word— imfuifilment? Are there those 'here for whrcn the years have been full of disappointment.' of disillusion? Life'seeined to promise so much when we were young; what great things it seemed to hold for us, what thrills and adventure?! We lived in constant expectation, as young men should live, stretching out open hands to life and looking for them to he filled full with happiness: and life has not come up to our expectations. Many of us. looking hack, can say, "We have only tasted." We have .seen many things with our eyes, things that we once hoped for foi ourselves, now being enjoyed by others, and, oh! the chances we have missed, and tlie opportunities we have lost, and, oh! the. good things that once were ours of which now only golden memories remain. We have worked and suffered and enjoyed, but these are many of us who feel that we have never really possessed. Life has 'been, so to speak, always slipping out of our grasp; we have never ''gone over and possessed it" as conquerors, and now the words I have just quoted seem to tell us that it is too late, and the verdict that we ourselves would pass on our own lives is expressed in that one word,

"UNFULFILMENT* Now, I am sure tihat you know well, my friends, that in speaking to you today my. aim is not to infect you with a feeling oi sadness and regret, but to comfort and uplift your hearts that you may look forward. "We are saved by hope," says St. Paul, "anil that which is seen is not hope." Hope implies a looking forward to something not seen with the eyes. You think that that word "imfuifilment" is a sad one. Well, but it is only on the surface of it that the sadness lies- In the heart of that word there is hope, and a greater power oj expectation than any we felt in the glorious days of our youth, for beneath the sadness of unfiilfilmont is inscribed the magic phrase, "to be continued." Think foi a moment of that great unfulfilled life which the words of the text bring to our minds. There are certain pictures in the Bible, which just as pictures arrest the mind and fix themselves on the memory so fast that t'hey cannot be forgotten, and .people who •know very little about the Bible generally can as a rule remember these. Which of the Bible pictures can you best remember? Here are three which struck me forcibly when I was a boy—Lot and ibis family fleeing from the burning David sittipg by the gate waiting for tidings of bis son Absalom; and Judas kissing his Master in the garden. These ami other pictures are sm powerful in their .pathos or awfuiness that they lay hold of toe dullest imagination and retain their place in it for ever. And so it is with this one. Moses at the end of his earthly pilgrimage, standing on the Mount of Visions, looking down on the land not far away which his feet were not to tread, the land which he had toiled to reach; and dying there on the mountain with the one great aim of his life broken oil. It seems a sad picture, doesn't it? It is indeed a striking illustration, one might almost say

THE STANDARD ILLUSTRATION of cans unfulfilled, of work partly done but left unfinished, of hopes never completely satisfied here on earth. ■ Yes, there is sadness in this- as in all real pictures of human life, but if we loot closely at it we shall surely we written on it by the hand of God those three short wonts, "to be continued." My friends, you have come here this morning because you believe in those words, because you feel that they give the clue to your own lives and those of your- gallant comrades whom you are remembering before Cod to-day, men who fell in the fight of Te Ng-utu o te Mann years ago. At the conclusion of our service the "Last Post" will be sounded in their honor.

THE "LAST POST" has the note of sadness in it, but not the note of finality. It does not .proclaim the end. Your comrades of long ago died without realising the fulfilment of their lives. In those early days the men of our race who fought for this country and the Empire no doubt saw tbe vision of what New Zealand would one day be. For liberty and justice, for peaceful homes and quiet lives, for the honor and the safety of its future citizens they fought and died in that battle of 'bygojje years. But they themselves did not. realise these things, they did not live to enjoy t'hem. You who have entered into (he good land for which they fought should always remember them with grititude and affection. But would you come here into the presence of Coil if you believed that as regards their individual lives all was over a.nd done with? No, it is t'hn thought •'to fte continued" thatf brings yon here. Can we not understand that the very incompleteness of life hero is a prophecy of its continuance hereafter? Think- for a moment of the terrible easualtv lists that we read to-day. When vou read that such-and-such a young man has been "killed in action" or "died of wounds," do you,

CAN YOU, THINK OF HiIS LIFE AS FINISHED?

With the eye of vision he had doubtless seen many things—victory, peace, the reunion of friends, the reconstruction of 'il'e. but he had not "gone over thither"; his life here has been broken off and his hopes unfulfilled. What are you to say to that man's friends?—rthat he had dud nobly, that he has won- an honorable grave? Yes ; but surely something mere than that. I s-hou' 1 say "one vohime of hi 3 life is closed, and at the foot of it is written, "to bo continued." Now another volume begins, and there in an unseen world, in a life bevon 1 our sight he still lives and works and loves, and tlie very incompleteness if Ins days here on earth is the .'issuiai.ee of the reality of the days to come. Su do you think of your comrades that have leJt you. You veterans still*stand shorider to shoulder together. I love to so 3 jcu here in the House of God.

IT IS A TRUE INSTIMCT that brings you here on Die anniversary of that da' lonjr ago which, tou csn

never forget. But you know that each year there are fewer"; comrades drop off, and you, like .the soldiers of bygone years, close up your ranks and march on without them. Think of them not as left behind, but as gone on before, waiting to welcome you and grasp vour hands again. Their lives, like yours, are incomplete; they had their unsatisfied hopes and unfulfilled aims as you and I will have when our summons comes, but that very fact tells us that there the life goes on and higher hopes are satisfied and purer aims are realised. So as each man goes give him in your hearts a good send-off, as he will one day gi\e you a. royal welcome. ''Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, Strive and thrive, Cry speed, fight on, face eve* There as here." And remember, a life's work must always see.m incomplete, because IT IS NOT REALLY OUR OWN, BUT GOD'S; it is part of Cod's plan. You carry it on to .a certain point, as far as God permits you, and then you leave it to Him. To you a life's work seems unfinished, but God says, "to be continued." He takes it, and weaves it into His own design, and carries it forward by other hands. You have played your part; you have done your bit for the Empire; you helped to lay the foundations; see now God is carrying that work ,of yours forward by other hands. At this moment other men are fighting for what you once fought, and the bit that you have done has given them a greater and a better thing to fight, for. There have come with you to this Church this ino'iiing those who are just beginning llic-ir life's work. They are the men of the days to come. Just as t'hey have come into the fortune you hove won for them, so, guided' by the hand of God, they will take up your unfinished work and carry j it on to the point where God bids them lay it down, and then the children \ft unborn will carry if on another stage. At the foot of your life's work Got has written, "to be continued." Lastly, let us remember that it is what the heart has-.purposed and eiiin-t-stly striven for t'hat is acceptable with God. The world judges by results. People want

TO SEE THINGS WITH THEIR EYES

before they pronounce life a success, But God knoweth the 'heart. Some of you may be feeling disappointed and sick With yourselves because you have meant so well and done so badly, because you hove wanted to : be so strong and have been so weak. My friends, take courage. It is what 1 you try to do and what you long to be that counts with God He understands your difficulties, temptations and weaknesses and'nothing can fail with Him. Across every pure thought, every good desire, every brave endeavor, every noble aspiration that seems to have perished long ago, Ho has written words that shall greet you in the life to come, "to be continued." Only keep on bravely now and never loosen your grip on life nor of Him Who alone makes life worth living. Right up to the end remember: every good thought and deed and word is "to be continued," and when you die you simply "go over to .possess" all the good that you have seen but not realised here.

IT IS NOT A BAD RECORD,

my friends; it is not a bad foundation for the fullness of the life to come, if in the evening' of one's life we can look back and say .with the poet Henley: "Crosse and trials a many have proved me, One or two women, God bless them, 'have loved me, I've faced my foe 3 and I've backed my friends, I've blundered, and sometimes I've made amends; Now I look before as- I look behind, i Come storm, come shine, whatever befall, With a grateful heart and a constant mind, • For the end I know will be best of all." "Best of all" for those who can realise the. comfort and tbe glorious ho.pe expressed in those magic words, "to be continued."