SERIOUS THOUGHTS.

Waikato Argus, Volume VI, Issue 434, 13 May 1899, Page 2 (Supplement)

SERIOUS THOUGHTS.

GOD'S LOVE IN US. That the love where with thou hast loved me may be with them.-Jolm xvn. 2b. What golden wish is this of our Lord for humanity ! Have we ever considered the height of perfection which Ho has for us ♦ If he merely expressed a wish that His Father would love us as He had loved Him; that itself would have boen a tremendous hope for humanity ; yet this is nothing to what Christ really asks of man. He does not merely ask that the Father would love us with utmost power of love, but that the Father would put in us His utmost power of loving, would make us love even as He himself loves. .. , , My soul hast thou considered what great expectation the Master has formed of thee? He wants thee to become recipient of the very love of God. Not simply to be loved by God but to have within thee God's love itself. He aeks for thee that tbou mayest be able to love thy brother with that degree of love wherewith the Father loves Him. Is not this the very summit of aspiration ? I grow dizzy with the height of promise. To love with God's love; to love with God's love in its moment of utmost intensity ; to love with the love wherewith He beholds that Son who is the brightness of His own glory; greater height than this can no man aspire to gain ! I am told to aim at the Infinite in that which is the ocntre of His infinitude— His love ! lam bidden to feel with His heart; to vibrate with His pulse; to glow with His warmth ! I am asked to bo content with nothing less than the fulness of Him that fillotb all in all; to be satisfied only when I awake in His likeness. _ ,_ -O. Matheson, D.D. (F)

LIFE'S SOLUTION. Nothing is left or lost-nothing of good, Or lovely; but whatever its first springs Has drawn from God, returns to Hun again; That only which 'twere misery to retain Is taken from you, which to keep were loss; Ouly the scum, the refuse and the dross Are borne away into the grave of things, Meanwhile whatever gifts from Heav u descend Thither again have flowed, To the receptacle of all things good, From whom they come and unto whom they tend, Who is'the First and Last, the Author and the End. Therefore he strong, he strong, Ye that remain, nor fruitlessly resolve, Darkling, the riddles which ye cannot But do the works that unto you belong. Believing that for every mystery, For all the death, the darkness and the curse Of this dim universe Needs a solution full of love must bo. And that the way whereby wo may attain Nearest to this, is not through brooelings vain And half rebellious—questionings of God, But by a patient seeking to fulfil The purpose 0 f His everlasting will, Treading the path which lowly men have trod. —Archbishop Trench. (F)