RELIGIOUS WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, 5 July 1919, Page 10

RELIGIOUS WORLD

SCHE DAY'S NEEDS. ! Each day I pray, God give me strength anew To do the task I do not wish to do, To yield obedience, not asking why, To love and owu the truth and scorn the lie, To look a cold world bravely in the face, To cheer for .those that pass me in the race, To bear my burdens gaily, unafraid, To lend a hand to those that need my aid, To measure what I am by what I give— God give me strength that I may rightly live 1

PRAYER. 0 Lorfl, we beßeech Thee that more abundantly than ever Thou wouldst pour out upon us the Spirit of gTace and supplication, and make us who profess to be Thy children less unworthy to receive the great gifts of the grace. We would recognise that Thou Thyself art the support and end of our being. And we pray for grace more continually, devotedly, and joyfully to fulfil ,the purpose for which Thou hast created, redeemed, and blessed us, as to yield ourselves as living sacrifices, surrendering our own wills, day by day, and rejoicing to do what Thou hast commanded, and to accept what Thou dost appoint. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

CHRISTIANITY THE WORLD RELIGION. The Teaching That Wins. By the Rev. Sydney Cave, D.D. The early Church opposed to idolatry on the one hand, and theosophic mysticism on the other, its proclamation of eternal life. Christians claim ,to be only sojourners here, their real home is in heaven. Thus the "Didache" tells us that the prayer a.t the Communion service was "May grace come and this world pass away. Maranatha, the Lord cometh." And with this game word "Maranatha," the Lord cometh, Christians encouraged each other to face death gladly in the amphitheatre. We find Celsus, the arch-enemy of Christianity, blaming the Christians for their disregard of worldly prudence, and sneering at them "because, however divided in other respects, they all use these words; the world is crucified to me and I to the world." Even one so flippant as Lucian could not help noticing their firm belief in the life that is eternal, and records with immense amusement "that these miserable people have got it into their heads that they are perfectly immortal." Moral defects there were many in that early Church, but at least with them the "assertion of the supremacy of .the spiritual over the temporal" was not an "aspiration" only but an "achievement." They claimed to be redeemed from the world, and to live in the spirit. And in this the early Church was but showing tlie spirit of its Master. The Kingdom of God means more than the realm in which men are meant to share already the life which is eternal and triumphant. To be a member of Christ's Kingdom is to be redeemed from the world, and so, in Christ's judgement, anxiety is a eiu unworthy of His followers. What Christ preached, the apostles experienced. Thus we find that for such a one as Paul, the Kingdom of God was a present reality. He lived in a communion with God which brought him strength for all his labors and an indomitable courage, in spite of weakness of body, conflict and suffering, he yet can speak of joy and triumph. Auready the eternal was his present. The eternal was his home, for there Christ dwel,t.

To many in our Churches the simple truth that Christianity means redemption, not only from sin but from the ■world, comes with an unfamiliar sound. Over-anxiety is spoken of as if it were merely a matter of temperament or "nerves," instead of, as Christ held it, the most unfilial distrust. The immense emphasis in the New Testament on the Kingdom of God, and eternal life as a present possession, has been .too much forgotten and we have failed to realise the significance in our experience of Christ's risen life. True, in every age and Church, there have been those who, often in humble and obscure circumstances, have been indeed redeemed from the world, and for them the eternal has been more than the temporal. We have failed ,to express this experience in the message we proclaim, and, because of this, we have not a gospel adequate to the needs of many of the most spiritual of Hindus. Is Christianity the world religion? If we are to have a religion adequate to the spiritual aspirations of the race, we need to re-explore the meaning of such words as "eternal life" and 'life in Christ," and show by our life and in our doctrine that Christianity is a religion of redemption from the world. But if this be so, then we have in Christianity an ethical religion of redemption which redeems from the world whilst it gives to life in the world a meaning and a motive, and a Christianity so interpreted is thus adequate to the two great types of spiritual aspiration: it is the reconciliation in a higher unity of the ethical and the redemptive types of religion; it is the world religion-

TIIE NATURALNESS OF PRAYER. In commenting upon this subject Dr. H. K. Fosdick, of New York, writes as follows: "When anyone undertakes to study the meaning and to cultivate the habit of prayer, it is' well for him to understand from the beginning that he is dealing with a natural function of his life and not with an artificial addition. Raising palm trees in Greenland would be an unnatural proceeding. They never were intended to prow there, and never can grow there save under stress of artificial forcing. The culture of prayer would be just as strained a procedure, were it not true that the tendency to pray is native to us, that prayer iB indigenous in us, that -we do pray, one way or another, even though fitfully and without effect, and that men always have prayed and always will pray. The definition of man as a "praying animal," while not comprehensive, is certainly correct. The culture of prayer, therefore, is not importing an alien, but is training a native citizen of the soul. Professor William James, of Harvard, was thinking of this when he wrote: "We hear in these days of scientific enlightenment, a great deal of discussion about the efficiency of prayer; and many reasons are given to us why we should not pray, whilst others are given us why we should. But in all this very little is said of the reason why we do pray . . . The reason why we do praxis simply th&twe-cannot help,pray-

Our justification for calling prayer, natural may be found in part, in the nniversity of it. In some form or other,, -it is found everywhere, in all ages and. among all peoples. The most discoiwaging circumstances' do not crush it,; and theories of the universe directly antagonistic do not prevent it. Buddhism a religion theoretically without a God, ought logically to exclude prayer; but in countries where Buddhism is dominant, prayer is present. . Confucius, a good deal of an agnostic, urged his disciples not to have much to do with the gods; and to-day Confucius is himself a god and millions pray to him. Before the .tendency to pray all barriers go down.

The traveller climbs the foothills of tho Himalayas, and among the Khouds of North India hears the prayers "0 Lord, we know not what ia good for usThou knoweth what it is. For it we pray." The archeologist goes back among the Aztec ruins and reads .their prayer in affliction: "0 merciful Lord, let this chastisement with which Thou hast visited us, give us freedom from evil and from folly." The historian finds the Greek world typical of all ancient civilisations at leas,t in this, that prayer is everywhere. Xenophon begins each diiy's march with prayer; Pericles begins every address with pray, er; the greatest of Greek orations, Demosthenes' "On the Crown," and the greatest of Greek poems, "The Iliad," are opened with prayer. When from tha superstitious habits of the populace one turns to the most elevated and philosophic spirits to see what they will say, he hears Plato, "Every man of sense before beginning an important" work will ask help of the gods" And; turning from Plato's preaching to hia practice, he reafts this beautiful petition, I "King Zeus, grant lis the good whether we pray for it or not, but keep evil from us, though we pray for it." If to-day one crosses the borders of Christianity into Mohammedism, not only will he find formal prayer five times daily, when the Mueggin calls, but he will read descriptions of prayer like this from a Sufi—"There aTe three degrees in prayer. The first is when it is only spoken by the lips. The second is when with difficulty, by a resolute effort, the soul succeeds in fixing its thoughts on divine things. The third is when the soul finds it hard to turn away from God.!' And if from all others, one looks to the Hebrew people, with what unanimous ascription do they say, "0 Thou .that hearest prayer unto Thee shall all flesh come" (Ps. 05, 2).

A man is cutting himself off from one of Ihe elemental functions of humane life when he denies to himself the tendency to pray."

THE LAST VOYAGE. (These lines appear in the Spectator, as written by an old carpenter in a workhouse in North London).

My work on earth is well-night done; I wait the setting of the son; I hear the surging of the sea That beats upon eternity. I see far off the shadowy realm, And thither turn the trembling helm; The wind that blows so cold and drear Grows softer as the end draws near. The distant gleams of silver light Relieve the darkness of the night; There stands upon the misty shore faint forms of loved ones gone before. The voice that once said, "Peace, be still." Now whispers softly, "Fear no iIL" I sail alone, yet not alone. The Saviour "takes me for His own, I wait His greeting" when I land, I wait the grasp of His loving hand.

. PESSIMISM. There is a subtle poison in pessimism. The pessimists are not in the majority in this world, but somehow they have a way of making themselves heard and their influence felt out of all proportion to their numbers. "A little pessimism goes a long way," and it manifests its presence just as certainly as any other kM of poison. The presence of the pessimist throws a shadow across the sunshine of life and makes it difficult for us to escape a feeling of weariness and hopelessness. The habit of looking always on the dark side of everything affects most disastrously the lives of those with whom the ' pessimist come? in contact. The pessimist will often say with a self-satisfied air: "It is the part of wisdom to be prepared for the worst." But is it necessary to assume that depression of spirits and a gloomy outlook are the best preparation for the worst? One can bear more courageously the burdens of life by meeting them with a smile and a cheerful spirit than bv fading them with a frown. If things are bad, the attitude and outlook of the pessimist will not make them any better. The Christian whose faith is fixed in God has reason to look with hopefulness upon the future, and to smile even when sorrows and disappointments almost overwhelm.—Christian Observer.