SERIOUS THOUGHTS.

Waikato Argus, Volume V, Issue 339, 10 September 1898, Page 2 (Supplement)

SERIOUS THOUGHTS.

CHRISTAIN PEACE. The peace of Christ was the fruit of combined toil and truth ; enabling Him in the one case to do things tranquilly, in the other to see thing* tranquilly. Two things only can make life go wrong and painfully with us; when we suffer or suspect misdirection and feebleuess in the energies of love and duty within us or in the Providence of the world without us, From these Christ delivers us by a summons to mingled toil and truth. Whoever wou'd have the peace of Christ, let him seek first the spirit of Christ. Let him not free against the conditions which God assigns to his being, reverently conform himself to them and do and enjoy the good which they allow. Let him cast himself freely on the career to which the secret persuasion of duty points, without reservation of happiness or self in the exercise which its difficulties give to his understanding, its conflicts to his will, its humanities to his affections, he shall find that united actiqn of his whole aud best nature, that inward harmony, that moral order, which emancipates from the anxieties of self and uuconsciously yields the divinest repose. Martineau. " Peace, perfect peace, by thronging duties 1 pressed ? To do the will of Jesus, this is rest" —Baxter (F).

THEREIN ABIDE WITH GOD. Let every one, what'er his calling be, Therein abide with God. She wrote of old St. Paul to them at Corinth; and to me, With loving lips, to-night, that truth was told. I had grown weary with my strifes aud cares, And murmured o'er the service of the day, Wherein I had forgotten, unawares. That thus I still might honour and obey. Therein abide with God : would I might ne'er forget That evermore I might with Him abide. What matters where or how the stamp is set. Or what the furnace where tho gold is tried, So that the metal has the sterling ring, So that the likeness of the King is shown — God's coinage still, that to the soul may bring Such wealth as merchant p.iinces have not known. In market-places where the race is swift, And competition on temptation waits; Iu quiet homes where unseen currents drift A thousand petty cares through open gates ; Let each and all, wluitc'er the calling be, Therein abide with God; from break of day Till set of sun they shall His purpose see, And serve him in His own appointed way. —A. D. F. Randolph. (F)