SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 March 1921, Page 11

SUNDAY READING.

,THE TWELVE GATES TO THE CITY. “On the east were three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates.”—Rev. XXI. 13*. (Rev. A. H. Collins, New Plymouth.) The book of “The Revelation of Saint John the Divine,” is shrouded in mystery. It is doubtful' whether any reliable key to the weird and wonderful record has been discovered. Amateur theologians in plenty claim to have found the clue to the most cryptic passages, and revel in the mysteries of “The Mark of the Beast,” “The Man of Sin,” “The Poured Out Vials,” and “The •Scarlot Woman.” But guess work and occult suggestion are not interpretation, and these are the methods which have been employed. Perhaps it is enough to say the whole apocalypse is a symbolic drama, a vast ever-shifting panorama of the spiritual conflict that raged round the Church of Christ, and rages still, and will continue to rage until the last happy warrior stands on “the sea of glass mingled with fire.” When and how the new City of God will be set up we may not know; but of this we may be sure, the triumph of goodness is certain as the promise of God. It was hard and weary work for Saint John to hope on and hope ever. Exiled on a craggy island, toiling in its salt mines, and. confronted by the representatives of rampant wickedness, in high places, it was no child’s play to pluck i. up heart of hope and still believe that a new and better order would arise. He and his brethren needed to “see visions and dream dreams,” and this book tells how they did it. • Quite naturally John, a member of the Jewish race, shared with David and the prophets their love of Jerusalem. He and they loved the city of the great king. Jerusalem stood for all that was noble and sacred. No city in all the earth like Jerusalem, and this patriotic love and pride led him to transfer the splendours of Jerusalem to the new City of God. Heaven would be the “New Jerusalem.” The same, and yet different, for whereas the City of David was the metropolis of the Hebrews, the Eternal City would be the home of God’s elect, out of all lands. All its blessings are for all mankind. The city lies open and accessible to all quarters, and to all quarters alike. The twelve gates front east and west, north and south. In bright prophetic vision, the man ofSGod sees the world’s glad bridal day, when from every part of earth’s wide bound men will troop into the City of God, to find that come whence they may, there is an open portal and a glad welcome to its blessed company and its blissful service. The portals are various, but the privileges are one and the same. It is a poet’s way of saying that men find their way to God, and “life that is life indeed,” along various avenues and experiences. There is one God, only one. But men think and speak of Him in a variety of terms. The Hebrews used to call Him “Yahweh,” the Romans called Him “Jove,” to the Chinaman He is “Foo,” the Hindu names Him “Brahm,” the Christians call Him “Father.” The label is nothing; the spiritual fact, behind the label is everything. There is one Saviour of the world, only one But men find their way to Him along different channels and from various motives. One man is won to Christ by the sublimity of His moral perfections, the charm of His Words, the mercifulness of His deeds, the glory of His self-sacrifice. Another falls under the spell of His mighty and matchless grace. Reason keeps the portal for some, and grave and thoughtful people pass through that gateway. . z

.For somfr, the hand of a little child swings open the gate of life immortal. Sorrow in sable garments leads some along the Via Dolorosa bf pain and anguish. Death’s bright angel marshalls some. There is one Cross; only one; but the Crqss is seen from diverse angles amty men interpret atonement in various ways. There is one city of God; only one. The pilgrims who walk divergent paths are sometimes vain and foolish enough to contend that theirs is the only way, and God pours confusion on such insular thoughts by raising up saints who walk other paths. Hence the outstanding fact is thia: That no church holds monopoly; no nation, under the broad Heaven has exclusive rights to the blessings of the Christian redemption; and no age has been made sole trustee of the manifold mercies of God All the churches- have nourished saints and heroes All the nations have representatives in the New Jerusalem. All the ages have seen His Natal Star. “They shall come from the east and the west, the north and the south,” and sit down at the banquet of Grace. I say it was natural that Saint John, being a Jew, should find in Jerusalem a symbol of the New City of God. But it is remarkable that being a Jew, he should represent the city as possessing twelve gates, for the Jew had been taught to think that God was the God of the Jews, and the Kingdom of God was theirs alone. The Apostles did not understand the wideness of God’s mercy at the beginning. ' Simon Peter needed a special revelation to convince him that God was the God of the Gentile world. Saint Stephen’s defence before the Rulers, favors “this apology to the Jews for the universalism of the Chris, tian Gospel.” Read the address, and you -will see that what roused their ire and led to the stoning was just this, that he told them tha z t God is not the God of the Jew only, but of the Gentile as well. He said that worship is not confined to any particular locality. He argued that not in their Holy land alone, but in. Mesopotamia, God appeared to Abraham. He said that Moses was trained in a foreign court, and that God was with Israel in Egypt no less than in Canaan. This was the larger gospel which served “new theology with a vengeance” It nearly wrecked the Primitive Church, and it would have wrecked it quite had not the robust commonsense'of Saint Peter and Saint Paul stepped in and saved the position. But that John should have reached this wider View is surprising, for temperamentally he was narrow and exclusive. He was one of the two called “the eons of thunder”—stormy, vehement, explosive. It was John who wanted to call down fire from Heaven on the Samaitan. It was John who rebuked the man casting out devils and forbade him because he “walked not with us.” But he had learned his lesson from the best of all masters, Jesus Christ himself, so that he could tell of a City of God open and free to the world. In doing this, however, he was getting “back to Christ.” If you will turn to gospel which is most distinctively Jewish, in thought &ja d tone 4 Saint Matt, you will find this

wider view of the Kingdom of God is suggested fropi the beginning, and that Christ preached it with increasing clearness as the end drew oJ-. The first to come to the manger cradle were men from the vast gentile world. Again and again Christ chose a Samaritan to illustrate His teaching and receive His praise. His parables conveyed the idea of breadth and inclusion, and not narrowness and exclusion. And the final word is, “Give my love to the world.” But we have not outgrown the need for this Catholic gospel Michael Angelo came to the studio of Raphael one day when the young artist was absent. Angels saw a sketch of a picture on Raphael’s easel, and, taking up the chalk, he drew lines outside the figure, making them bolder and freer. Then he wrote one word, “Amplius.” larger. It was the turning point in Raphael’s career, for up to that point his work had been crampeds Isn’t that Jesus Christ’s message to each one of us? Amplius!” Larger thoughts, wider sympathies, roomier hearts, a bolder, broader faith, a more daring interpretation of God and His purposes for the world. Oh! In the presence of Christ, how vain and trivial and foolish it seems to hear Christians scold and unchurch one another for differences that are trifles light as air, and no more enduring than the moths that dance and die in the fading light of a summer sky. In the catacombs of Rome there is a rough, sketch, of a shepherd carrying on his strong shoulders a kid of a goat, The picture seems to have suggested Matthew Arnold’s lines:— He saves the sheep, The goats he doth not save?' So spake the fierce Turtulllan, But an English writer carries the thought further for the writer:— Silim’ned thy Christ, And bold, yet not too bold. Smiled and the tyrant’s torch, the lion’s cry. So narrow the childlike heart, the Angelic mind. Goodwill to live, and fortitude to die, And love for unen and hope for all mankind. One shepherd and one foldt Such was their craving, none should be forbid; All, all, were Christ's. And then they drew once more. The shepherd beautiful. But now he bore No lamb upon his shoulder, just a kid. Twelve gates of the City! Gates wide enough for the greatest sinner, though not wide enough for the smallest sin. Gates that face every point of the world’s varied needs and experience. Your soul’s experience may not be mine; mine may not be yours. One man’s conversion. is a crisis, another’s is a process. One is driven to Christ by the lash of terror and another is wakened as by a kiss. Moody entered the Kingdo mby one gate, Spurgeon by another, Bucher by another, Channing by another. God makes no duplicates. He loves variety. The question is not how did you come to Christ? The question is this: Have you come: Are you on the road? If not come now. Start to-night. Are there not twelve gates to Heaven, North and South and East and West? May not they of every doctrine. Enter that eternal rest? Every kindred, clime and colour, Every creed and tenet too, Shall not they be represented With the dogma taught by. you? When the Master counts His jewels. What a blending will be there; "Whosoever's” beauteous diamond Elashing light beyond compare. Set amid the Calvin sapphire, Boman ruby. High Chureh beryl. And the Independent opal Purified in times of peril. Amethyst of Wesleyan beauty, Pearl of Presbyterian hue; Topaz washed in Baptist waters, Emerald of the Fagan too. Coral from Pacific Islands, Chrysoprase from Africa's plain, Chrysolite from China ransomed, Gems from Greenland’s icy chain. Gems of lustre most equisite, From Mohammed’s darkened mine; Stones we never knew the names of. Taken from the Buddhist Shrine; Vishnu pouring out his treasures. Greece and Egypt adding store, Chrystal tear-drops shed to Idols, Rendered precious evermore.