SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 November 1921, Page 9

SUNDAY READING.

“THE PEACE OF THE MAN OF SORROW.” “Peace I leave with, you; My peace J give unto you: not as the World giveth give I unto you.” —-Saint John, XIV., 27. (By Rev. A. 11. Collins, New Plymouth.) Pax vobiscum!” “My peace!” The peace of “the Man of Sorrow”! It is part of Christ’s last will and testament. He had singularly little to leave to Hi* friends. Not a foot of laaid, not a silver shekel or a homespun shroud, not even a picture of Himself, save ae the picture was graven on the hearts of His disciples. Christ wrote nothing and built nothing. Cradled in a cattle cratch, housed in a workman’s cottage, and buried in a borrowiJ grave, because in death, as in life, He “had not where to Hi® head,” Christ might have said, “Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give 1 unto you,” and so e bequeathed to them .His peace. Thus did our Divine Master magnify the spiritual above the material, and ponied a line scorn on the baubles men hoard and idolise. Yet how volatile and unsubstantial it seemed! Peace! What eared the carnal men of the age for that? Were thfey not. warriors, and traders, and priests? The silence of the Apostles suggests that possibly even they thought little of it. It often hap-’ pens that the best things of life have to be with us a long time ’ere we learn their true value, and Christ’s gift of. peace, so far from being effervescent, is found to be solid, and precious, a gift which outlasts gold, and sorrow, and death. "My peace I give, unto you.” These are stray notes struck from the one perfectly harmonious life, chords which give the key to the entire melody, tones which tell the ineffable sweetness of the whole symphony.

A REMARKABLE THING. One of the remarkable things about these words is that they should have been uttered at such a time. It was near the end of His troubled career. The cold breath of night was blowing upon Him. Ihe Cross was looming black against a darkening' sky. Death clutched His mortal heart. Yet there He stood, tearless, tremorless, triumphant! He tells them He is going away, but ’ere he departs He givee them the sacred secret of His serenity, and gives it, not as ar passing mood, hut as a quality that will abide for ever. “Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.” Then he allows these perplexed and distraught men to look into the calm,-fathomless depths of His untroubled soul, and shows them how any life may be lived in quiet obedience to God’s sovereign will, and death itself may be enswathed iir an atmosphere of deep, celestial peace. It is very wonderful, and as real as it is surprising.

VARIOUS FORMS OF PEACE. But what does the blessing mean? Vv hat is peace? Plainly we need to be careful here lest we confuse things that differ. There is a peace of indolence, lii<e an ox chewing its cud on the bank? of a silent and sluggish river. There is a peace of seclusion, like the hermit in his cell, who knows nothing of the struggle for freedom that rages outside. There is a peace of submission like a straw on a stream. There is a.peace of compromise like the weather-cock on a church steeple, that escapes friction by turning with every change of the wind. There is a peace of insensibility like the stricken battlefield, when the pale moon shines on the rigid corpses of the slain. Christ’s peace was none of these. He was no dreamer sleeping in the sun, with head pillowed on lotus blooms. H? was no asdetic. Tie never trimmed His sails to the wind. Tie neither offered nor 'accepted an anaesthetic. He was exquisitely sensitive. He tingled with life, and all His powers were perfectly poised. His peace was not due to a happy conspiracy of circumstances, but to the conquest of adverse circumstances. It was not that His life was easy, but that Spirit ruled the flesh. I have seen some of the world-famed pictures of our Lord: Leonardo de Vinci’s frescoes of “The Last Supper” in Milan; Ruben’s “Last Judgment” in Antwerp; Dore’s “Christ in Pilate’s Hall” in the National Gallery; and Holman Hunt’s “Light of the Word” in Birmingham. The craftsmen have wrought with consummate skill, and in some cases the result is triumphant success, and most appealing—the bramble crown, the strained body bowed under a burden of pain, yet with a sense of Divine repose and inward rest. SUPERB STRENGTH. But few. if any, of the pictures convey the impression of Christ’s superb strength. The face, though beautiful, is weak. The pose, though graceful, is not strong. The eyes, though soft and beaming. arc not starry and prophetic. But that is not the Christ of history. That not the Jesus of rhe four go-spels. “Jesus meek and gentle, Son of God Most High, Pitying, loving Saviour. Hear Thy children's cry.” It is a perfect hymn, for a child. But: j “Strong Son of God, immortal love, j Whom we who have not seen Thy I face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing, where we cannot prove. Ahl that is better; that is a hymn for men. For Jesus Christ was resolute, fearless, uncompromising. His peace is not the peace of acquiescence, accommodation, yielding, not even of comfort and success. There were some things He eared for more than outward tranquility. He loved peace enough to contend for it. His whole life was a battle, His teaching held the seeds of revolution. He set men's minds in a simmer. He came to straighten things that were tangled, and right things that were wrong. He was a storm centre, and never sought escape by flight. He faced the tempest and beat up against it. yet He blended the diapason of the deep with the soft flute notes, as when a lark drops liquid music after the thunder crash. Behind the electric npark of His -holy wrath was the stiti white radiance of Spiritual peace, n star burning undimmed in the vast dome of His flriuamental peace. WIND-SWEPT AND TEMPESTUOUS. Perhaps you think 1 have strayed from my text. Well. 1 have not strayed. But peace" is a strong thing. n »t a soft thing, and its possession doer, not mean immunity from struggle, \nd and

loss. What our Lord promised was not exemption from the common lot of men. but power t o endure and conquer. He would not drug the soul, but fortify it. What He offers is not an opiate, but a tonic draught; not ease, but peace. Outwardly, Christ’s life was wind-swept and tempestuous, like yours and mine., but the depths were unruffled as ours might be. just as the sea whose surface waves are tossed, whilst its deep currents move steadily forward. Ease is an opiate, peace is a-stimulant, or say, rather, it is a nourishment. “In the world ye shall have tribulation, but in Me ye shall have peace.” The two things are not inconsistent. Science distinguishes between motion and energy, and Christian folk should mark the distinction. A good deal of our activity does not mean progress. A squirrel on a loose whfeel in a cage is Very active, but gets nowhere. The secret of effective speech is quiet assurance; the secret of prevailing prayer is calm trust, and the secret of victorious living is inward peace, a life linked with. God, a will wedded to God’s purpose. Drummond illustrates the difference between the two conceptions of rest in this way: Yonder is a still, lone lake, up amid the hills, with scarce a ripple on its surface. That is stagnation. But ■ yonder is a rushing mountain torrent, j hurrying to the sea, and over it hangs the branch of a mountain ash, with a bird’s nest built in the fork of the branch, and swaying in the wind. That is rest, for in rest there/s the blending of turbulence and quietness, danger and trust. Jesus Christ’s life not a lake; it was a full-breasted river, but J His hehrt nested in God. STAGNATION OR REST? Now, which is your life, a lake or a iiver? A lake without a ripple, or a full-flowing river with a bird’s nest hanging over it? Stagnation or rest? Is it unkind to say your life is a river minus the nest? Is the modern church the sanctuary of God’s peaces I know she is busy, but does ehe suggest the spacious rest, the noble calm, of forgiven men and women? Isn’t the modern church often wrinkled, fevered, and carelined? Does she not look anxious, a bit. worried, uncertain, strained, as if ehe were trying to do more than she ean? Yet her Master was never wrinkled, and He willed to her His peace, and any man whose life is homed in God would Jose the sense of over-strain in the new sense of the inevitableness and the adequacy of God’s power, and God’s peace. “'.For Thou will keep him in perfect, peace whose mind is stayed on Thee.” ; OUR GREAT NEED.

And this one word more. Do we not need this pfeaoe in the ministry of intercession? Do we not need the* serenity which breathed in this word of Christ, “I know thou hearest Me always”? Importunity does not. mean impatience. Earnestness and vehemence 'are not the same thing. lam not thinking of loudness, but of the clutch and strain which suggest that we are not, sure of our ground. The marginal reading of that lovely word, “0 rest in the Lord,” is this, “Be silent unto the Lord.” Instead of urgency and clamor, perhaps wo need a little more of the Quaker’s silence and receptivity. I know’ it is written, ■‘Knock, and it shall be opened unto you,” but that is not the frenzied and fearful Hammering of the prisoner who thinks his keeper's back is turned and he is forgotten. There is another who says. “Behold. I stand at the door and knock,” and the door that leads to the presence chamber of the King opens on the noiseless hinges of trustful prayer. Peace in toil, peace in warring circumfctances, peace in pain, peace in life, and deep calm peace at “twilight and (•veiling bell.”, “Sunset and evening star. And one clear call for me! And niti.v there be no moaning of the bar. When 1. put out to. sea; Rut such tide as, moving, seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam. When that which d/evr from out the ' boundloss deep - Turns again home.” “O Lamb of God, who takolh away the gift of the world, grant ws Thy peace.” ■