SERIOUS THOUGHTS.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 255, 5 March 1898, Page 2 (Supplement)

SERIOUS THOUGHTS.

"THE SHADOWS OF ANGELS' WINGS."

1 read the other day such a pretty saying : " Earth's clouds are oftci only the shadows angels' wings," It would be a great help to many o us if we realised it—made it real. We know a great many things in a half-hearted sort of way, but they are not real to us—they are not facts. Now if we could only take this as a real fact, that the clouds of earth arc often only the shadows cast by angels' wings, and act upon it, howmuch happier we should I.e. We all want to be happy, don't we ? Will you be surprised if 1 say we all ought to be happy ?

RELIGION should brighten ouk lives,

Some people think think that religion makes people miserable. So it docs, when they think of themselves and howfar they fall short of what they might be ; but that's not the fault of religion, that's their own fault for looking continually at themselves. Religion comes and tells us to look away from ourselves and up to Co I, and the more wc do that the happier we shall be, because wc shall not be thinking of all our failures and mistakes, but of the happiness God gives us and God means us to have. " Oh, yes," you say ; " we know that God means us to be happy in heaven, but heaven is a long way otf, and we arc busy here today, now, in our homes ; and it's impossible to lie happy when everything goes wrong aud we have so many difficulties in making both ends meet—in keeping the home clean and the children tidy."

But, my clear friend, it is none the less true that our heavenly Father does mean us to be happy now in spite of everything. Those who are living " the higher life " can be happy in the midst of these trials and troubles because they live in a different atmosphere—they live in the peace of God which passcth all understanding, and this lifts them even now into the happiness of heaven. Will the clouds be gone ? Oh, no ! but wc shall learn to look through them and beyond them into the sunlight of God's presence, and thcie we shall recognise that the dark things of this life are often only the shadows of an angel's wing—of an angel's wing sent by our heavenly Father to minister to us in some way. We don't always recognise the angel, perhaps, because he is too big ; we only sec a bit of the wings and realise the darkness, and not the fact that it is an angel hovering over us. How rnuih easier it would be co bear our troubles if we could think of them as angels' wings. They would tell us two things : one, that they were sent by our heavenly Father—a messenger from him to teach us something, and the other, that though all around us looks dark there is a light where God is. What docs a shadow teach us ? Why, always that there is light somewhere—a shadow is the proof of light. Take away the lamp and all is equally darkness ; take away the sun and you w otild have neither shadows nor light. Tho shadows prove the \ery existence of the light, and so may our troubles prove to us the love of God who sends this angel's wing to lift our hearts to him. "1 am the light of the world. He that followeth Me shall not Walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." Here are Christ's own words suying the very same thing; but I can imagine many people saying, " That's all very well, but what I want to know is how to bring it into our daily life—how, as you say, to make it real.'' I think this is it: Christ promises light to him " that followeth Me." Well, in the East the carts are mostly drawn by oxen, and to make them go in the right way that they want the drivers use goads or sticks with a pointed end. If the oxen stray to the right or to.the left the driver touches them with the goad, which pricks them and makes them shrink from the wrong direction. We are like the oxen, and need a prick now and then to keep us from wandering into false w ays and paths that lead to darkness. Our troubles are the goads—the touch of the Master saying, " This is the way, walk ye in it." They hurt; oh, yes 1 so do the goads, but the hurt that endureth for a moment is a less evil than being lost in the darkness, and the more readily we obey it, like the oxen the less it hurts. Does it not make our troubles easier to bear when we can think of them thus ? When we can realise that they are the Master's voice speaking to us? God seems sometimes eo very far away, but when we think of Him in this way we see how truly He is " about our bed and about our path " and we are glad that "He spieth out all our ways."— From " Homely Talks on Serious Subjects," by Mrs Boyd Carpenter (F). THE SECRET LIFE. When no eye sees you except the eye of God, when darkness covers you, even then be like Jesus Christ. Remember His ardent piety, His secret devotionhow, after laboriously preaching the whole day, He stole away in the midnight slnuhs to cry for help from His Father. Recollect how His entire life was constantly sustained by fresh inspirations of the Holy Spirit, derived by prayer. Take care of your secret life ; let it be such that you will not be ashamed of at the last great day.—C. H. Spurgeon.