SERIOUS THOUGHTS.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 238, 22 January 1898, Page 2 (Supplement)

SERIOUS THOUGHTS.

"THEY FORGAT GOD" (Ps, cvi. 21.)

TItERK is no practical need for any of the so-called proofs <fihc existence ot God. The most convincing of all arguments for the being of God i 3 not to be found in the reason but in the conscience and heart. Cod is the one necessity of human life. Although it is true that wc do not need to prove God, it is equally true we are all in danger of forgetting Him, of allotting the sense r.f His presence, of His greatness, of His holiness, of His love to become faint and feeble within u*?. Sometimes the satis fictions and enjoyments of life make us forget Him from whom they come. There is a striking verse in the book of Deuteronomy in which Moses warns Israel against this danger (XXXII. 15) " Jenhurun waxed fat . . . then he forsook

God which made him and lightly cs teemed the Rock cf Iris salvation." The Hebrew word used here literally means " faded away " : that is Cod faded out of His people's sight just as in the blinding glare of a summer noon all the distant mounta : ns seen to be wrapped in hoze. Too many of the good things cf this world, a too long and uninterrupted enjoyment of prosperity may mean the loss of" God.

Or it may be an opposite reason that accounts for out furg tting God- Trouble may for a time destroy all our faith, until we cty out in despair of His hearing u°, ancl the thick darkness of doubt closes over us. There is no experience more terrible than this. Sometimes it is the strain of life that robs the heart of i s consciousness of Cod. There are nun and women living in the world who ate so pressed with daily care, so driven by incessant worry a&d toil, that they have grown dull and callous to all but the necessities of the hour; they have lost all sense of the eternal and unseen ; they are tco hu-y, as they say, even to pray. Their life is like the whirling machinery of a great factory and as soulless. Is it possible some reader of these lines may be among those who have thus "forgotten God." Almost without knowing it are you living your daily life " without God in the world " ? If it be so, and you desire to tegain your former consciousness of God, to come back to His heart aga'n, to ta<te afresh the sweetness of His love, to speak to Him and to hear Him speaking to you, this very desire to return to God is the best proof that God is already seeking you. All through these years of forgetfulness and sin God has not teen far from you, though you knew it not. That secret unrest, that dissitisfiction with life, that longing for something you knew not what, were His visitations to your soul ; His Gracious warnings that you had forgotten God. The way back to God, blessed be His name, is open to all. Jesus said : " I am the way " and " No man cometh un'o the Father but by me." The " narrow \\%y to God leads by the Cress of Christ. George S. Barrett D.D. (F).