FEAR IN LOVE.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 269, 2 April 1898, Page 1 (Supplement)

FEAR IN LOVE.

The fear tbat God looks for is not a paralysing dread which checks all; effort and kills all hope. Our Judge knows that our work will bo full of faults, but fear of Him ought to norve us to make the endeavour. It is not what men do, the feeble sum of their proformance, that He regards. The way, the spirit, the motive from which it is wrought—these will be the ground of our Father's judgment. Hence the Gospel is a message for all the world alike. The poor and lowly, to whom no great deeds are possible, may through it live a life of hope. It is not great gifts poured into the treasury from an abundant st iro that have value in His eyes, but the gifts which come with a heart's sacrifice—these are precious indications, and receive His blessing, "They have done what they could." God's children are to look on their life as no more than a brief pilgrimage. It is a time of sojourning, in which the small occurrences are of little account, iiarth is to tbo Christian what Egypt of old was to the Hebrews, no home, but a place of trial and oppression. God will bring his children forth, even as he did of old. But the dread to be most entertained is, lest the many attractions should, like the flesh-pots of Egypt, win the affections ofthe pilgrims and make thorn uot unwilling to linger in the house of bondage, and to think lightly of the peril which surrounds them there.—Christian Age.