SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 July 1921, Page 9

SUNDAY READING.

THE LAWS OF GROWTH. “But grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and. Saviour, Jesus Christ.” 11. Peter, IM. 18. (By Rev. A. H. Collins, New Plymouth.)

Growth is a law of life. Life is the condition of growth. Dead things cannot grow, living things must. Plant a school boy’s marble in your richest garden plot, and it remains a marble still, and of the same dimensions, but plant a mustard seed! Not all the eloquence of a Demosthenes can add to the height, the bulk, the beauty of a statue; but the seed corn grows, “first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.” Hence this word is spoken to those who are “alive unto God,” for to speak to nnqnickened souls, bidding them “grow in grace,” is to command the impossible. When a rose bush can charm the eye with beauty and load the air with fragrance though severed from its root and planted in a bed of sawdust, then, and not till then, may we hope to see souls bearing fruit unto holiness though separated from the Datber of Spirits. Coleridge defines geiuvjs as “the faculty of growth,” and goodness may be defined in the same terms. Goodness is the grace of “■becoming,” the soul ever changing into a diviner and eompieter thing. Science defines life as "‘perfect correspondence with its environment/’ and we can accept that aa true of spiritual life. God is the souPfi environment, and spiritual life consists in correspondence with God. The New Testament message to the unregenerate soul is “Ye must be born again,” for life is the condition of growth. But we may be ritarvelings in Christian experience; we may possess a life that is stunted, shrivelled, anaemic; and co the spiritually undeveloped, the word. i» “But grow in grace.” Growth is a law of life, and it is proof of life. If a tree puts forth bud, and branch, and fruit, there can be no question of life. The shoots may lack vigor, and the fruit may lack maturity; but the presence of

i seme degree of life is demonstrated Religious experience may be, and often is, deficient; love may be fitful, devotion .half-hearted, temper tart, and our whole life a pitiful example of grace grafted on a crab tree, but if the root of the matter be in us, this is our high calling.

“GROW IN GRACE/There is one point more in this connection. Growth is the one effectual guard against decadence and death. Parasites fasten on decaying things. Health is the sovereign protection against the invasions of disease. It is when our religious life lacks the fullness of God’s vital energy that we fall a prey to cranks and faddists. A higher spiritual tone would throw off parasites, or better still, render us immune .to their malign influence. If your heart’s action is healthy, you will not need to carry a hottie of smelling salts. That is Saint Peter’s point here, as you may see by the context. “Grow in grace,” he says, and this will protect you against doctrinal error end moral failure. If your religion is not to “sag,” you must make healthy growth. Is this, then, a call to strain, and painful effort?” “Grow,” says the Apostle. But how am I to grow? Wishing will not do it; willing will not do it, trying will not do it. “Which of you, by taking thought, can add one cubit to his stature,” either of body or soul? A'our little -three-year-old child, your Queen of Sheba, in whose eyes you are a very Solomon for wisdom, comes to you, to prove you with hard questions. Her eyes dance with’ light, her limbs move with restless, rhythmic motion, as she, laughing, claps her hands -and cries “See how big I is!” And in the effort to stand on tip-toe, she upsets her balance, and falls! She has been taking thought about her stature, and suffered disaster. Have you never known children of a larger growth make the same mistake 1 with the same result They try to make themselves grow a bit faster by attending this “conference” and that “convention.” They rush to hear this preacher and that evangelist who is supposed to hold the secret of hastening spiritual growth, and you have the edifying spectacle of a mortal man standing on tip-toe. in the presence of his Maker, and proclaiming sinless perfection! His motive may be excellent, but his method is assuredly wrong. Soul growth comes not that'way. Obey the laws of growth, and you will grow without strain and without taking thought to add to your stature.

HOW TO GROW

Now, the classic text on this subject is the word of Jesus Christ, “consider the lilies of the field how they grow,” and rhe best commentator on the passage is Professor Henry Drummond in “Natural Law in the Spiritual World,” where he points out that the special point is that He who made the lilies made, the illustration. It is like an inventor describing his own machine. The words arc generally read as an appeal to the study of Nature. That, however, is not the point. We are not 'bidden to consider the hliea in order that we may admire their beauty and dream of their grace and their fragrance. The point to consider is “how they grow.” how, without anxiety, or fret, the flowers wake to loveliness; how, without effort or strain, the leaves are woven; how, without toiling, their complex tissues come forth from the looms of God in more than Solomon’s glory. Then comes the application. How is the soul to grow? How- are we to become better men and women? By what means can we add to the grace and strength of life? And ■to these questions Jesus Christ’r? reply

is “consider the lilies.” For, as Drummond goes on to say, violent effort to grow is right in earnestness, but wholly wrong in principle. Lilies do not grow 'by strain or effort, neither do souls. r I here is one law of growth in plants and animals, in body and spirit. Obey the laws of growth and you will grow as the flowers grow, in grace and sweetness. Science/and experience, and

religion, are one in saying this. A boy not only grows without trying, but he cannot make himself grow if he tries. A doctor has no prescription for growth. He knows how growth may be hindered, and the body stunted, but the secrets of Nature she keeps in her own hand. Tn the same way no physician of souls has any prescription of spiritual growth. It is a question often asked, and as often answered the wrong way. He will advise more Bible, more prayer, more zeal, more self-denial, all of which good for something, but no good for encouraging growth. We need to get back to the simplicity of Nature, and, instead of seeking sanctification by struggle, we need to learn that it comes by faith and obedience, for to try to make the soul grow is like the attempt to make the tide come in. You simply can t do it. Growth in grace is not promoted by trying, or wishing, or williOs(.