SERIOUS THOUGHTS.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 303, 18 June 1898, Page 2 (Supplement)

SERIOUS THOUGHTS.

THE BLESSING FOR THE UNSUCCESSFUL.

(Continued),

Much of the ir.ost beautiful lite in this world comes out ol sorrow. As " fair flowers bloom upou rough stalks," *o many of tho fairest flowers of human life grow upon the rough stalk of suffering. There is a special promise which says " Thy power is made perfect in weakness." Before God can put His strength into us, we must confess that W 3 have no strength of our own. Thus our very weakness is an element of strength. Weakness is an empty cup that God fills with His own life. You think your weakness unfits you for noble, strong. beautiful living, or for sweet, gentle, helpful serving. You wish you could get clear of it. It seems a burden to you, an ugly deformity. But really it is something which, if you give it to Christ, He can transform into a blessing, a source of power ; your weakness draws to you divine power and make 3 you strong. There should be unspeakable comfort and inspiration for us iu the truth. For example, we have not been successful in life. We have tried hard but have not gotten on. This is the way it seems, at least on the earth side. But, if meanwhile we have besn true to God and faithful in duty, there has been an unfailing inner prosperity which men do not see. This world's affairs arc but the scaffolding of our real life, and within the rough exterior of earthly failure there has risen coutinually the noble building of a godly character. We would, better, therefore, learn to measure life by true standards. JSo one has really failed who has lived for God, who has lired according to God's law, who has wrought on the temple of truth, in the cause of righteousness. " Speak, history! Who are life's victors ? Unroll thy long annals and say— Are they those whom the world call the victors, Who won the success of a day ? The Martyrs or Nero ? The Spartans who fell at Thermopylae's tryst, Or the Persians and Xerxes ? His judges or Socrates? Pilate or Christ ? J. It. Millee (F.) SCIENTIFIC AND RELEGIOUS SINCERITY. v It will be a happy day when scientific and religious men have learnt to recpect each other's sincerity. But that day will not bo brought about until on each side the principle of faith is freoly accepted. What needs to bo seen by tho average man of science is, that science has not only largely rejected the conclusions of redgion, but also of science itself. Medical men are at this hour even more disagreed about scientific truth than religious men aro about spiritual truth. Directly a medical practitioner steps out of the beaten track he i* bitterly availed by his own brethren ; and yet some of the most shamefully persecuted of these innovators hare at last revolutionished tho profession. Harvey met with a storm of opposition when he announced his discovery of the circulation of the blood, A hydropathist who provfis that he saves one precious life after another finds himself, all the same, a subject of malignant boycotting by nearly every doctor in his distriot. Science is thus accused with want of faith, which is the firnt necessity of science, just as much as faith is tho firstnecessityofreligion. There is a rohgion of little faith which 13 a miserable failure all along tho line ; and there is a science of little faith which fails along parallel Hues. —Christian Commonwealth.