SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 20 November 1926, Page 17

SUNDAY READING

By

REV. A. H. COLLINS

THE WELL IS DEEP. The woman saitii unto Him, ‘‘Sir, Thou hast nothing to draw with and the well is deep.”—St. John iv., 11. “Samaritan” was bee-sting to an orthodox Jew 7. “Woman'' made his lips curl, for he had been taught to give thanks that he was not born a woman, When it was a woman with a past, his eyes blazed. The disciples w’ere Jews, who had not outgrown these racial and sex prejudices, hence’ “they marvelled that He spake with a. woman.” Jesus had no prejudices. He loved the race. His roomy heart housed the whole world. His salvation was for all, and nationality, colour, ereed, sex were trivialities compared with the soul's fathomless needs. So He poured the red, sweet wine of love from the golden chalaee of His heart, at the feet of “a woman of Samaria,” who had trailed her honour in the dust.

Water and weariness are everyday things for the people of the East, for the sun is hot and the water pots soon run dry, and the trudge to the cool dark well is part of the daily drudgery. It was in such common-place things Christ found His text, and from them preached His greatest sermons. The low embrasure of the well became His pulpit, thirst was His theme, and His winged words of piercing insight searched a woman’s heart and compelled the yielding up of her soul’s secret shame. It may be doubted . whether Jesus Christ ever sounded deeper depths than in this wayside talk to an audience of one. Yet all was done so artlessly and sc spontaneously! The woman’s perfectly natural comment, “Sir, Thou has nothing to draw with,” touched a spring in the Saviour's heart, and the river of His grace flowed in streams which made "the wilderness and the solitary place blossom as the rose.” This despised woman —despised in race and sex—had stumbled on a great truth, and it would save us from endless blundering if we learned the lesson that “the well is deep.” THE IMMEASURABLE. We are all in danger of becoming the slaves of the shallow and the measurable. We want the things we can fathom, weigh and count. We are impatient of mystery, yet the chief use of the measurable is to point to the immeasurable, the finite suggests the infinite, the human leads to the,divine. “Who by searching can find out God unto perfection.” You may. tell exactly how many persons the church will seat, but can you express the latent powers of a single member of the congregation? You may define a doctrine, but can you exhaust its meaning? You may measure a prayer-room, but can you measure a prayer? You may describe the Holy Table, but can you tell all that is included in a communion? You may lay

your three foot rule on the Roman gibbet, but can you measure the cross, where “Jesus our Love was crucified”? You may tell the dimensions of old Jerusalem. but can you explain the city of God? Pools? Oh, yes! you can fathom the pools, but the springs? But the great things of life and religion, the great things of God and man, are deep, deep wells and not shallow pools. Pointing to a portrait on his vestry wall, a minister once remarked to me, “a pool, an inch deep!” Could any condemnation be graver than to say that a man is a pool, shallow and stagnant? “THE WELL IS DEEP,” We ehall never make much of life until we learn the elementary lesson that “the well is deep.” There are lovely things on the surface of life—flowers that etar the meadows,, streams that flash and glide and sing their way to the sea; sunny, dimpled, childhood', that romps and fills the air with laughter; man and maid that love and dream and vow. Yes, these things lie.on the surface. Nevertheless, life is deep. Your flower garden is .buttressed by granite rocks that sleep in sunless caves. Your streams are born in the fountains of the great deep. Behind blithesome, carefree childhood lies centuries of civilisation. Love ’twixt man and maid comes from the very .heart of God. The heroisms of life are fed by the deep springs of national feeling, and in order to keep these frail surface things we must relate them to the deep things of God. LIFE A SERIOUS THING. Our one chance of making a success of life is that we take life seriously. The man who treats life as a joke never gets anywhere. Life is not a sports field, or a machine for grinding out cash. “Life is real and life is earnest.” These fast flying years are for the building of character and the growing of a soul, and the man who frivols his days and years is missing life’s true end. No man was ever yet nourished into greatness, on a "diet of broad grins. “Deep calleth unto deep,” and if any man would enter into life”—not heaven, mind, but life—‘‘let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me”; for “straight is the gate and-narrow is the way that leadeth unto life.” It is pitiful to see men and women who live on the surface, and spend their powers on things that do not matter, like John Bunyan’s “man with a muck rake,” who was busy raking straws and saw not the crown that gleamed above his head. Think of the spectacle of tens of thousands of our people absorbed in discussing the face and the frock of a beautiful girl, as if that were the chief thing! 1 say nothing of the vulgarity ami the commercialism of the whole business.

Dwell deep! The little things that chafe and fret. Oh! waste not golden hours to give them heed! The slight, the thoughtless wrong do thou forget, Be self-forgot, in serving others’ need. Thou, faith in God, through love for man ehalt keep, Dwell deep, my soul, dwell deep! Dwell deep! Forego the pleasure if it bring Neglect of duty; consecrate each thought. Believe thou in the good of everything. And trust that all unto the wisest end is wrought; Bring thou this comfort unto all who weep: Dwell deep, my soul, dwell deep. A DEEP BOOK. . Next I remind you that the Bible is

a deep book. In one sense it is the simplest of books, for it deals with elemental things, like birth and death and hunger and labour and pain, which go on in village and hamlet every day. These things are told in charming narratives of Joseph and Samuel and David; in idylls like that of Ruth and Naohi and David and Jonathan; in Psalms like the twenty-third and parables like the prodigal; in precepts and promises a child can understand and a sinner cling to. Yes, the Bible is very simple. “The profundities of our faith are the simplicities of our mother tongue.” There are waters in which a lamb can wade, and there are depths in which an elephant can swim. But the Bible is never shallow. It is profound, for it deals with the deep, original wound of human nature. It goes down to the roots of man’s misery and degradation and remorse. It reveals the abysses of mercy and judgment: and the men who have pondered it most are the first to confess that the Holy Book is an unfathomable, inexhaustible fountain. The cardinal doctrines of the Bible—inspiration, atonement, judgment to come —these are the subjects learned men have pondered for ages, and have not reached finality. What do we know about theme? Our book shelves groan under the weight of volumes written to expound these doctrines. I have read a good many of them, and tried to get a grip of their meaning, but when the books are laid aside, and I turn to the Book itself, I seem to hear a Voice saying, “.Sir. the well is deep, and t'hou hast nothing to draw with.”

OUR SUPERFICIAL KNOWLEDGE. Much that is unsatisfactory in modern religion is due to the fact that our knowledge of Scripture is scrappy, disjointed and shallow. Cranks flourish on our ' ignorance of the Bible. Superstition abounds when the Bible is unread. The cure for a narrow sectarianism is a fuller knowledge of the Catholic Scriptures. Sanctified ignorance is far more perilous than sanctified knowledge. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” and nowhere more so than in relation to Holy Writ. Dr. Hutton has a memorable essay on what he called “the Hard Church,” and that is a serious reflection on any church. But there is one type which ought to characterise, and will characterise, the Christians whose spiritual life is fed from the deep wells of Holy Scripture. We may name it "The Deep Church,” for the hearts of its members are enlarged and enriched to apprehend the height and depth and length and breadth of the things of God. Those who muse and ponder the profound things of the Bible will become more and more truly Deep churchmen. RELIGION* TO BE VALUED. Finally, religion is a deep well. I am not thinking of “plans of salvation,” or “schemes of doctrine,” or ‘‘theories of the church.” You may have either or all of these, and be little the better. Behind all these lies, religion, and religion to be of any real value must be an experience, aye and a deep experience. Plans of salvation may be elaborately drawn; schemes of doctrine may be faultlessly faulty; theories of the churc-h may look perfect on paper; but unless they are vitally related to the facts of life they will not work. “The one vital thing in religion is first-hand personal experience,” says Fosdick. “Religion is, the most inward, intimate, incommunicable fellowship of the human soul. It is the fight of the alone to the Alone. You never know God until you know Him for yourself. The only God you will ever know is the God you know tor yourself.”

Religion is not creed,, or ritual, or orthodox opinion. Religion is an experience. Would 1 abolish creeds? No, I would not. They have their use, as fences round the church have their use, but I would not use a fence for a foundation on which to build a church. Our blunder is that we mistake fences for foundations, and so make religion mechanical. We say, “Believe this and that; de so and so.” But religion is not mechanical, external, ceremonial. Religion is vital, inward, experimental. It I js the living soul in actual touch with the living God. It is not 'the acceptance ! of something our father said was true.; lit is not living on the spiritual capital of past generations. The only religion that, will"work is that which is born in daily fellowship with God the Eternal Spirit. It is a personal experience—a deep experience of to-day. We know God as we know that sugar is sweet. We know the Holy Book as we know sunlight; we know religion as we knowlove, by experience. “O taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.” RELIGION A DEEP EXPERIENCE. Life is deep, and we have nothing to. draw with. We eannot plumb the deeps of life by our unaided powers, but on the low pitched well eat One who lived; Ong w-ho shared our lot, thrilled with our joys and sobbed with our grief; and to know Him is to hold the secret of life. The Bible is a vasty deep, and we have no means of understanding its profound depths, but Jesus holds the key. Religion is an experieuce—a deep experience—and Jeeus had a perfect genius for religion. Behold the miracles which Jesus does! He gives the. labourer leisure as he goes from toil to toil, And to the anxious man a heart of peace amid turmoil! Kills pain which does not cease. He makes the sick man full of throes contented still; He beauty makes out of deformity, To slaves of will, gives freedom and simplicity. He maketh thorns more sweet than any rose. A narrow board more comforting than bed of down; Of shamf, reward! And out of-chains a crown. He makes zeal burn, in hearts more cold than snow; He makes ill bless; He, makes the practised actor lose hie part. And clumsiness a work of perfect art, Behold the miracles which Jesus does!