SUNDAY READING,

Taranaki Daily News, 4 June 1921, Page 9

SUNDAY READING,

OUR UNSEEN HELPERS. ‘Tear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.” —II. Kings, VI., 16. (By Rev. A. H. Collins, New Plymouth.) Israel and Syria were near neighbors. The one kingdom was limited in size, with “a contemptible little army”; the other vast in dimensions, with swarms of warlike men. As frequently happens in such a ease, the big kingdom, not content with its bigness, wanted to swallow up its Smaller neighbor and make it part of itself. Just as France has often wished to get hold of Belgium, and Ausftria has east efnvious eyes on -SwitzerHand, so Syria coveted Israel. Statesmen never lack a plausible excuse for acts of national plunder, and Syria no doubt could give diplomatic reasons for her plot. But plan how she would, her plans always miscarried. Her movements were known to the King -of Israel, and whether the Syrian army lay in ambush or marched at dead of night, the warlords were chagrined to discover they had been checkmated. ‘•'Therefore the heart of the King of Syria was sore troubled for this thing.” His one idea was that there were traitors in his own camp, “Will now tell me which of us is foy the King of Israel?” said this rough warrior. His counsellors knew better, and told him so. -Their own ' people were loyal enough. They told no tales. But, said they, there is a man, a prophet, one Elisha, the servant of Jehovah, who sees ■ into the heart of things, and knows, not only the disposition of our troops, but the unspoken thoughts of the King in hit> bed-chamber! Elisha is the man with whom we have to reckon, and trap him if we can. His knowledge is amazing, and his spirit is uncanny. He is Israel’s greatest asset. He is the man to put down and put away. But how? Now the King of Syria was one of those men who imagine that wealth and wisdom ate the same thing; that bluster and big battalions can do anything, that “might” and “right” are interchangeable terms There are lineal descendants of this man sitting on thrones in Europe to-day, men who are foolish enough to suppose that they can fight against God and win, can violate the moral law and “hack their way through,” men who otder their ways by “The good old rule, the simple plrin That they shall get, who have the power. And they shall keep who can.” Elisha’s lodging place was Dothan, a little town perched like an eagle’s nest on the top of a hill which overlooked the lovely valley of Esdraelon, and Syria’s plan was to send a body of picked troops, who should quietly invest the spot, at nightfall, and capture the prophet. The strategy succeeded up to a point. The march was made And the town was invested. In the morning Elisha’s servant was startled to find that, look which way he would, there were chariots' and horses, and soldiers whoso spears glittered like a forest of steel. Panic-stricken, he cried, “Alas! master, what shall we do?” “Fear not,” the calm answer, “for they are more that are with us than they that be with them.” The servant had always trusted Elisha, and had never been shamed for his confidence; but what could these I words mean? His lips were silent, but his looks said plainly: “These are brave words, but they won’t save us this time.” Then the impossible happened. Elisha prayed, and the eyes of his servant being opened, he saw that which made him as calm as his master. The Bible is full of illustrations of the serenity inspired by a sense of Divine protection, arid this story is one of the most picturesque comments on the psalmist’s words, “The Angel of the Lord eneampeth round aboutMhem that fear Him and delivereth them.’’ “Israel is safe if Israel’s God is there.” “The Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he sq.w, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.,” Mark that last phrase, “round about Elisha.” The invisible allies were there because the prophet of God was there. The Syrians had some dim perception of the prophet’s weight and worth. They felt that this skin-qlad man, with his quiet ways, was the real power behind the throne of Israel, and that to capture him would mean more than winning a pitched battle. But neither Israel nor Syria appraised him. at his full value. It seldom happens that nations estimate their great men aright. Cromwell would have counted only one in an English census of the seventeenth century; yet his presence made the difference between England as the first Protestant Power in Europe, and England as a mere appendage of Versailles. A single Napoleon made France. One Bismarck created modern Germany. And these are not the highest types of manhood after all. It is when you come to measure the prophets of a nation that your measuring line fails most. When the Empire audits its accounts, that which is best worth considering is not its gold reserves, its trade, its army, and its fleet, but its Spartan virtues, its devotion to truth, its love of righteousness, its visions of God; not its brilliant authors, its gifted artists, and its dogged fighters; but its Elishas, with prophetic insight, courage, faith; men who, because they dwell alone, like tall mountains, are first to catch the light of the new day, and feed the springs which fertilise the plains. The pith and point of the story is that which, follows. The. prophet prayed, and his servant’s eyes were opened. He saw what had been hidden before. Yet what had happened? Nothing outward and material had changed. The Syrians were there as before. It was the man who had been changed, his inner power of vision had been quickened and expanded. His soul’s sight had been cleansed. The universe is the same to the philosopher and the clod-hopper, to Peter Bell and to William Wordsworth, and yet how different! To an oyster the world is simply a shell that opens and shuts. To a dog in his kennel the universe is only a back yard with a patch of blue sky overhead. To the Swiss peasant the world means Switzerland. To ourselves the universe’is vaster, and yet how little we see of its infinite expanse and variety! How contracted our vision! If Newton, with his wide range of knowledge, felt himself a child gathering pebbles on the shore while the dim and tumbling 6ea stretched into the boundless distance, how should we feel? We have five senses, five open windows through which we look out/ on God’s world. Suppose the five were augmented, and instead of five we had a sixth sense. What might not the universe then be to us! By means of the telescope we can increase our powers of sight a hundred, or a thousand fold, so that where the naked eye saw nothing, starry worlds swim into sight. By means of the microscope we can see odd and imD'

ish things squirming in a single drop of water that looks perfectly pure, and fever germs have been discovered in a dewdrpp! More wonderful yet, by means of the RontgCn rays, science can look beyond the cloudy vesture of the flesh. Nor dare we say that greater wonders than these are impossible Along the line of physical science. But the mental is more than the material, and. tfye knowledge which is of “things we see” is less than the great realities of the invisible world. Thought and will, conscience and love, are things out of sight, yet these are the directing and governing forces of the world. “No man hath seen God at any time,” yet He is “the blessed and only Potentate.” Faith is the sixth sense. We do not see the hosts of heaven, but they are more real than anything that is seen. Call it fanciful, call it rhapsody, call it what you please; to me it is not only credible, it is gladdening and inspiring, to believe that.we are compassed about with spiritual forces and agencies greater than anything we see or dream. There are more tilings in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy. The spiritual world is our real world. Very true and very beautiful is the passage with which George Eliot closes one of her chapters in Silas Marner: “In the olden days there were angels who came and took men by the hand, and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now; but yet men are led away from threatening destruction; a hand is put in theirs, which leads them forth gently, towards a calm and bright land, so that they look ndt back any more, and the hand may be a little child’s.”

“Hand in hand with angels Through the world we go,. Brighter eyes are on us Than we blind ones know.”

Of course, I know it may be objected that this vision at Dothan had no objective reality, that it existed in the mind of the beholder alone. But in the light of the New Testament, which tells of angels that ministered to'Jesus Christ in the garden, announced His resurrection, witnessed His ascension, released Peter from prison, and stood beside Paul on the swaying deck of the storm-tossed ship, 1 welcome the suggestion of unseen, friendly presences in human life, who illumine the mind in dark hours, reinforce the will in moments of mortal weakness, and bring us Divine help above all we can ask or think. Too long have we been slaves of sehse. Too long have we been overpowered by vast, ponderous, material things, unmindful of the fact that this is a spiritual universe; that mind is more than matter and spirit mightier than flesh. Spiritual things are spiritually, not biologically, discerned. And for the rest it is ehough to know that Christ is tlie meeting place of the seen and the unseen, and when life is linked with Him, he have solid ground -for believing that we are under His protection, and within the. realm and reach of helpers invisible to mortal sight. *

“Lord, make my heart a place where angels sing! For surely thoughts low-breathed by Thee Are Ahgels gliding near on noiseless wing; And where a home they see Swept clean, and garnished, with adoring joy, They enter in, and dwell, and teach that heart to swell With heavenly melody, their own untired employ.

The Gospels tell of a blind man who eat outside a city gate. The air was clear and still. Every object stood out sharp against a cloudless sky. It was a world of wonder and beauty, yet he saw nothing. Thon came the crowd, shouting and jostling. The ‘blind man heard and hoped. AVonder deepened into prayer: “Lord, that I might receive my sight.” In a flash the film passed, and for the first time Bartimeus saw the light of common day, the fronded palms tossing in the wind, and the face of Christ. May isuch a vision come to us .all to-day!