SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 July 1922, Page 9

SUNDAY READING.

A LEAGUE OF NATIONS. “In that day there shall be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian dhall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria; and the Egyptians shall worship with the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, a blessing in the midat of the earth, for the Lord of Hosts hath blessed them, saying: Blessed be Egypt My people and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel Aline inheritance.” —Isa. XIX., 23, 24.

(By Rev. A. H. Collins, New Plymouth.” LITTLE BELGIUM OF THE EAST. Dr. George Adam Smith declares that the last ten verses of this chapter “form the most universal and missionary of all Isaiah's prophesy.” But 1 am afraid the meaning of the passage is obscure to the ordinary reader. The clue to the text lies in the geography of the ancient world. Look at the map of the .world in Isaiah’s time, and you will see that the kingdoms of Israel and Judah lay midway between two vast military empires, Egypt to the south and Assyria to the east. For generations these nations were rivals for trade and power, and the results were disastrous to the buffer state of Israel. Israel supplied the line of communication between Egypt and Assyria, and when either wished to strike a sharp, swift blow at the other, they did it by marching through the territory of their small neighbor. Israel and Judah was the cockpit. It was the little Belgium of the 'East. But Isaiah predicted a change. The day would come when these mighty Empires would no longer meet in war, but come together for common worship. Friendly intercourse would take the place of hostility and aggression, because both would learn to know the God of Israel, and this international friendship and fraternity would be the result of Israel's missionary activity. Israel that had suffered so much at the hands of these warring nations would give them the blessing of peace by giving them a knowledge of the Prince of Peace.

AWAITING FULFILMENT. Isaiah's prophecy still waits fulfilment on a world scale, and in the light of present happenings it seems Utopian to dream this dream. It is three years since the Peace of Versailles was signed and the League of Nations formed, and though something has been achieved, the nations are hostile and jealous, and whilst a halt has been called in building Dreadnoughts, the sneaky submarines continue, and Professor Pringle, of the Otago University, declares that since the Armistice was signed three years ago, more discoveries have been made in poison gas and munitions than during the previous one hundred years, so that the next war will be a war of extermination, and modern civilisation would collapse, and Christianity would pass from the white man to the yellow and the black races. The one hope lies in the League of Nations becoming a fact instead of being an ideal in the minds of a few. The root cause of the present situation is that Nationalism instead of Internationalism is the ruling passion of the nations. We think and speak and plan for our own people, instead of thinking and speaking and planning for the world. We are parochial instead of universal. Our politics, aye. and even our religion, are “cribbed, cabined and , confined.” It is the policy and the piety of the parish pump! “England for English.” “New Zealand for New Zealanders.” is answered by “Germany for the Germans,” “France for the French.’’ in short, every man for himself. There used to be a popular toast in England: “My country, may she always be right; but, right or wrong, my country!” It was bad politics and worse religion. Any man who knows his Bible ought to know that such sentiment is atheistic. Plainly that is not the New Testament ideal. It cannot be that such a toast represents the ideal relation between the nations. It cannot be God’s design that the peoples of the world shall dwell in hostile camps and chronic antagonism, or stand off in “splendid isolation.” NATIONS SHOULD BE NEIGHBOPvLY. Plainly it is the will of the Almighty that nations should be neighborly, friends and helpers, and not rivals and foes. Just as God has bound together in one harmonious system the stars of different magnitudes, movement, color, and orbits, and caused them to belt the dark sky with a zone of light, so the nations of divers colors, language, and gifts are intended to complement and complete each other in sympathy, reciprocity and helpfulness, until they become one blessed brotherhood. Instead of my country against the world, the Christian position is my country for the world. That does not mean less patriotism; it means a truer, worthier patriotism. It is the only salvation from the Bedlam of politics and the defeat of religion. Does not geography point that way? All the good things of life are not found in any one land; they are distributed over the face of the earth. We must go to India and China for tea, to Canada for timber, to America for cotton, to Africa for gold and diamonds, to the North for oils, to the South for silks. Does not ethnology teach the same lesson? No one national type includes all human perfections. It may gratify our national pride to believe that every Britisher is a noble fellow, and every German a scoundrel, and talk patronisingly of “the inferior races,” but facts are against us. The mental and physical qualities of mankind are supplementary and complementary, the one of the other. French brilliance, German thoroughness, American audacity. Italian artistry, British pluck, the science of the West and the idealism of the East are all needful if we are to realise fulness of power and happiness. Does not history tell the same story? You need go no further than your garden plot to see your debt to other nations than your own. The pear and the come from Asia, the lily, from the Levant, the rose from Java, the pink from Italy, the dahlia from .Mexico, the chrysanthemum from Japan. I and so on in endless examples. Do not . trade and commerce tell the same tale? The’ Italians and’the French taught us .silk weaving, the Flemings gave us the woollen trade, the Venetian glassware, ; the Germans our paper mills: the Dutch taught us pottery and the Vikings navigation and ship building. Religion speaks ; with the same voice. Any man who knows his Bible knows that the kingdoms : of Egypt. Assyria. Babylon and the rest J influenced the minds of those who wrote I the 'Old Testament, and that Rome and Greece left their mark on the thought of the New Testament. So with churchI os. No church has all the truth and no chore l ' has missed all the truth. As the

! Bishop of Worcester says/it is for us Christians to insist to the patriot, striv- | ing for his country’s liberty, that there ; is a larger claim—the claim, as Spring • Rice, with his last prophetic breath, told America as well as England—the claim .ofAnother country, I’ve heard of long ago, Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know—>We may count her armies, we may not see her King— Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering— And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase, • And her ways are ways of gentleness and all her paths ere peace. In this way all down the centuries nations have educated one another in art and science, in literature and trade, in government and religion. The thought of God is brotherhood and fraternity between the nations. They are not intended to be self-contained and self-suffici-ent, and still less to be mutually antagonistic and destructive. It is by friendliness and co-operation they will come to perfection and strength. In ternationism is the next step, and because the League of Nations is seeking to realise that, it should have the support of all who are seeking to think God (> s thoughts after Him, and walk the way of His appointing. AN IDEAL NOT SUFFICIENT. But you can’t drive a locomotive with a foot-warmer. An ideal is not sufficient, you need the power to realise it. Isaiah not only, prophesied of the improved relations between Egypt and Assyria, but foretold how it would come to be. The marriage of nations will take place where other marriages are celebrated at' the altar of the Most High. Nations will .come together as they come to Jesus i Christ, for He is the centre, and His will J is the supreme law for nations and indi- | viduals. There is no’other way. I Cobden thought Free Trade would | promote fraternity. The white wings of our ships would be as the dove with the olive branch. But as Adam Smith says: “Commerce which ought. naturally to be among nations, as amongst individuals, a bond of friendship and union, has become the most fertile source of discord and animosity.” Nations fight for markets, and the words “made in Germany” explain a good deal. Education was supposed to hold the secret. Nations distrusted because they did not know. Multiply books. Send ! the schoolmaster abroad, and men will learn to love. But the printing press : prints lies as well as truth. Flaming headlines and scare paragraphs have been ' potent instruments in stirring up strife, j i Some rested their hopes on science j which reveals the wonderful harmony and ' I unity of the world. But science which ! tells of the oneness of the cosmos, tells 1 the secrets of poisoned gas and deadly j munitions. Trade, knowledge, science, look in the direction of national brotherhood, but have not the power to get there. Religion is the only cement to bind the nations, only when I say religion I don't mean an “ism” or an “ology”; I mean the law and the spirit of Jesus ' Christ. He is the Reconciler of man to ' God, and of roan to man. When the prodigal returned to his father, he re- : turned to his brother, too. Jesus Christ ; taught the Universal Fatherhood of God and the Common Brotherhood of Man, and the frank acceptance of His teaching would mean the unity of. disunited ' peoples. Israel was planted in the midst of two warring nations, and it was Israel’s election of God to give to them j the knowledge that would end their jealousy and antagonism, and make them one in God. BRITAIN HAS THE GOSPEL OF GOOWILL. Is it too much to say that this is Britain's election, too? Our Empire stands in much the same relation to the modern world that Israel stood to Egypt and Assyria. We have the gospel of goodwill. By our language, our literature, our national institutions, and our genius for colonisation, we are fitted to lead the nations into the nobler life of ser- , vice and fraternity. Could any honor ■ be greater? Could any dream out-riyal this, that from yonder murky island in the cold, grey North Sea there shall arise statesmen to lift the banner of international union and co-operative service, instead of devastating war and racial jealousy? In this Christian mission we can play our part. We can stop using- insulting language of other nations. We can cultivate a spirit of courtesy .and peaceableness and unselfish service amongst ourselves. We can live Christianly. The Bay of Naples is said to be one of the most beautiful spots in the'world, j Its shimmering, sunlit sea, its painted palaces, its domes and spires, with Vesuvius a nodding plume of flame, and the over-arching sky blue as Aaron’s robe. Yet the bay was once a blazing cauldron of fire and flame, for it is an extinct volcano. But the fire died down, the

smoke rolled away, the sea overflowed ' the crater, and the calm waters sleep and dream with azure depths reflected on their bosom. The world is tempest-toss-ed and storm torn and smoke blinded, hut give it Christ’s law, and instead of jealousies and hate, instead of war and tumult, “righteousness will flow down like a river, and peace like the waves of the sea.” On Armistice Day, Lady Limerick laid on the Soldiers’ Cenotaph in London a wreath with these lines of Alfred Noyes attached:— There's just one gift that all our dead desire, One gift that men can give, and that's a dream, Unless we. too, can burn with that same fire Of sacrifice: die to the things that seem; Die to the little hatreds; die to greed; Die to the old ignoble selves we knew; Die to the base contempts of sect and creed. And rise again, like these, with souls as true. Naj' (since they died before their task was finished), Attempt new heights, bring even their dreams to birth; Build us that better world, O, not diminished By one true splendor that they planned on earth. And that’s not done by sword, or tongue, or pen— There's but one way. God, make us better men. WELL DONE! “My removal was excellent! lam ; delighted!” This was the brief pleasing message from a client whose furni.ire we ‘’shifted.” We shall be pleasdto handle yours too. Our men are experts. Our equipment is the most up-to-date in the Dominion. Estimates gladly given at nur . fficcs. The New .ealand Express Co., Ltd.