SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 February 1917, Page 6

SUNDAY READING.

CREATION-- OLD AND NEW, SERMON PREACHED BY REV. A. H. COLVILE, M.A., at St. Mary's Church. New Plymouth, on Sunday, February 4.

"In tlie beginning God created." — Cen. i., I.

"He (liat sitleth on tlie tlirone said, 'Behold I make all things new."'— Rev. xxi., 5.

Tlie Scriptures we read on this Sunday arrest, bur hurrying thoughts for a few moments and turn them back into the far past, bidding us listen to that voice which first pierced the eternal darkness that "brooded over the face of the waters/' and 'broke the eternal silence—"in the beginning God." Out of the fullness of that great Spirit whom we call God was this world created. The thought steadies us; it brings us comfort. There are so many thousands of people to-day who are in their hearts afraid, and cannot be of good cheer when they think of the future: und if they gave utterance to those secret fears they might perhaps express them in the words of the well-known hymn, "Change and decay in all around I see." The thought of change is in the air; "never," we say, "can tlie world be the same as it was before the war." Those of us, for instance, who have been brought up in the Old Country can hardly help wondering—if ever we go back there in the days to come, shall we recognise it as the England of our early life? Will not everything be changed? Think, for instance, of the people who used to be what is called "comfortably off" whom the war has well-nigh ruined. Think of the "new" people whom the war has suddenly enriched and who cannot feel the same sense of responsibility for their money which so many of the "old" people undoubtedly possessed. Think of .the faces we shall miss; tlie friends whom we shall not see again this side of the grave. Will not fife be poorer and thinner for us than it used to be? We are getting on in life, perhaps; not the new world belong to the young? May I we not be roughly pushed aside by thousands of men and women tarrying to reach a place in the sun so long denied to them. Will there be any link at all between the old world we knew and loved and the new world of which we are afraid? I know 'ihat some of tlie.younger people may be getting impatient with me over these remarks. Afraid? .Who's afraid? They are not a bit afraid, and are looking forward to life with the greatest eagerness and anticipation. Quite right: a great pity if they were not. But let them, bear with me for a few moments and try to sympathise while I speak to tlie older ones. It is good for the young to learn how to sympathise with tlie old. Let them be content. I am not going to leave them out of the' sermon to-night. Their turn will come.. But, my friends, we can't leave tlie older people out either. The thoughts I have already tried to express are, I know, in the minds of many. There may be a good deal of selfishness mixed up with them, but in a great measure they are natural. It is: not of the war that people are afraid, not of the ultimate issue of the war, but of what will come after the war, of great and startling changes which they dimly apprehend and which may alter the whole face of the world for' them. So it is good for us to turn our thoughts for a moment back into the far past, and to call to mind

THE GREAT LINK thai, binds the world of to-day and the world of to-morrow with the world at its earliest dawn. "In the beginning God created"'—and the great principle of creation is the same to-day as it was when the world was young. Still the word of God to man 'holds true—"While the earth rcmaineth"; still there is the same faithful return of day and night and the sequence of seed-time and harvest, f.nd the suspense of winter, and the recovery of spring, and the falling of the autumn leaves, and the glory of summer days, and still scattered far and wide amid all this changing landscape move to and fro the people of the earth; and still above all and through all and in all moves the eternal spirit of God, the Creator and Preserver of mankind..

Yes, God created, and what He created He loves, and what He loves He pre- • serves. "Never/' says tlie writer of the book of Eeclcsiasticus. "would He have created anything if He had not loved it." Love is the motive behind ail the higher forms of creation. We knew that it is so •with lis. The li'st and most effectual sort of work is that done under the impulse of love. When we; do work without thinking of any material reward we are going to get for it we speak of it as "a labor of love,"' and when a man fails and doc 3 not create anything at all, not even money, wo account for it and account for it rightly in nine eases out of ten when wo say "He had no heart in his work." The heart and not the pocket is the true inspirev of the mind. We love the thought first before we love the thin?, and it is love that brings the tiling out to the thought, that brings it to the birth. We can imagine, for instance, a great poet into whose mind there comes a beautiful thought; if he did not We the thought lie would in probability i<t it go again; .but let us say the thought appeals to him; he turns it over and over in liis mind; he falls in love with it and nothing will do now but that he must clothe it in noble language and perfect form, and so give it to the world. If he said to himself, "I don't care for this thought, hut there is money in it," then he ceases for a time to be a poet and becomes a pot-boiler. Ail artists know what it means to love their thought before they create the th : .ntr. So it was with the Great So it ■was "in the beginning with God." Love was the supreme, motive of God in creating the world, in creating you and me. He thought of us before He made ns, and loved us before we were born, and shall He not also preserve us? "Love never faileth." How then can we be afraid of the future, or of life or death or any other thing, since nothing can separate us from the love of God. There was once a little girl who disliked intensely being li.it alone in the dark. Her mother assured her as she said "good-night" that God was there and would protect her. The child answered. "You may take away God, mother, if you will leave me the candle." Dp you think that story simplv amusing? Do you not see something pathetic in it, too? There are many grown-up people to-day, the sort of people to whom I have already referred, who, like that littlo child, think they must have their candle in order to support existl '—«n_. They- ate frighte»»4 «f the •"■«* \

to come. "Don't take the candle away" —it is a pathetic appeal. To the Government, to society, especially perhaps to the young people growing 'up around them, they cry out in their hearts, "Don't take the candle away. Just leave me the bit of money I.'have always had, that simple pleasure I have always enjoyed, that modest position i have always occupied, that friend en whom I have always relied. I s'lm'l surely be distressed and frigMened if I am deprived of those things; indeed, I cannot imagine Hi', without them. Religion doesn't mean so very much to me after all. I can do without the Church, I can do without the .Sacrament, 1 can even do without God, but I c.innot do without the few good things of life to w'hich I have grown accustomed. Yes, you may take away God, if only you'll leave me the candle." I sympathise deeply, but I can only say that such an attitude towards life is' paralysing to the soul. Many candles are in" the. wind (o-day, dickering, guttering, and the fresh gusts of the coming life vill perhaps extinguish them altogether. But, my friends, we need not be 'a I raid: we need not be afraid of altered conditions, we need not be afraid of the dark (if life is going to be darker for some of us) if we can know certainly that

GOD IS THE SAME,

and that God is with us; if we can stay our minds on Him with t'his one steadying, reassuring thought, "God created, God loves and God will preserve." And so wc come to the second point 'I wish to emphasise to-night. It is not only "Cod created," but "God creates." "He that sittctli on the throne 3-iid, 'Behold, I make all things new.'" God is not simply the force which in 1 lis begin■ ning gave the world an initial push into existence, set things going, and tiic:i retired into the 'background watching men toiling to worTc nut their own salvation. There could hardly be lovs in sucli an attitude as that. God is stil! and always will be the Creator. Still under the guidance and providence of God the world moves on to its appointed goal, new discoveries are made, new "inventions" as we call them. Still man "think's God's thoughts after Him," anil works with Him m making life fuller, frier, riclier, deeper, and in the noblest sense "better worth the living." Mar. works with God; it is his highest pr'vilegc, but God creates, aifd wdiat will be His creations of the years to come? To 'what must our younger people look forward with eagerness and keen anticipation. Not surely to having a better time because other people are having a worse time. There may bo in the future a putting down of the mighty from their seat and the exalting of the humble and meek, but there will be no real exaltation for the violent and aggressive. Not to an easier and more comfortable life than their fathers and mothers enjoyed. "I have made a fortune for my children" is not to create but to paralyse future creation. No, the young must not look forward to a more selfish and luxurious existence, fewer restraints, and more liberty to please themselves; not to a new world with Ciod left out, but to a world of grander and deeper ideals in which life shall open out freer and fuller for thousands of the poor and neglected and those who have never hud a fair chance; a world in w'hich men and women shall find their greatest delight and truest happiness in serving God and their fellows; a world in which God still creates and in which we can find fellowship with Him in the fascination of creation.

We should all, whether young or old, whether we feel that we belong to the future or are afraid that we only belong to the past, set this before us as our aim for the days to <?ome—to create with God—to give ourselves as ready instruments to His creative spirit. And remember,

GOD IS THE GREAT ARTIST. fife loves and creates beautiful things and hates what is ugly, vulgar and tawdry as every real artist does, and if indeed we are to be His instruments the creation of beauty in the world must also be our own desire. What of the creations of modern life to which I have alluded, many of them the expressions of man's worst passions and appetites? Have they been creations according to the mind of God? Have they not rather been the result of the twisting of man's own creative power, the power given him by God? Have not many of them turned the world into a very ugly and horrible place to-day? And have not others, designed for man's pleasure, become in the hands of their exploiters instruments for the vulgarising of life and even for the poisoning of the ima.gination? No, my friends; we read that in the beginning "God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good.'' I don't know Hebrew, but the Greek word for "good" also means beautiful, and I am sure we should not be wrong if we thought "God saw everything He had made, and behold it was very beautiful." We can well understand it. The sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains,.the seas, the plains, the trees and flowers, the birds and animals, and the crowning work of creation the building up of man. God's work was beautiful. And when we read, too, "He that sitteth on the throne said, "Behold I make all things new," we cannot doubt that His design is to make all things beautiful too. And God lias given to you and me the creative faculty, and He asks your help, you younger people especially, in making the life of the days to come more beautiful for all; more beautiful for the old and weary by your readiness to do them service, by the respect and honor you give them; more beautiful for the men who will soon come back to this country from their great adventure, by the consecration of ycur influence to God, by refusing to tempt them, by earnestly striving to help them to all that is good. Von may create a new and more beautiful life for your own children by making a new sort' of home for them in which obedience and Self-restraint shall be taught and from which God shall not bo banished. And you shall remember that the great creative feat of our religion, of Christianity, is the creation and building up of character, and that the greatest discovery Ohat any one of us can make (alas!'that we older people often find it out when too late) is that in character, not in circumstances, lies the real secret of happiness. Here, then, is your (rue scope for fellowship with God in the work of creation. Let this be your aim—the creation of a new and more beautiful world, and then no one will be afraid of the future, for men will recognise in your 'Work the hand of God, the 'heart of God, the creative mind of God. And though many changes may come and maiy old landmarks he swept away, and much that we have held p..:- I

cious seem to decay, we shall still lift up our hearts to Him, and find fresh hope and courage and a 'continual assurance of His faithfulness in the jrayer, "0 Thou who chaajest n*t Abide with mo."-