THE SABBATH

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20923, 30 September 1939, Page 20 (Supplement)

THE SABBATH

CLOUDS t i Closing in, in crowded horror, Clouds of grief, torment and pain; j Clouds of sad, forsaken children, Clouds of those who mourn the slain. Domineered with direful terror, 1 J Death around us closing in; Money, power and greed the watch- | word, Nations steeped in war and sin. j Weary hearts distraught with sorrow, i Seeking peace and finding none; 1 Weary eyes in anguished searchings, Weary feet too tired to run. , 1 j 1 Northward, Southward, Eastward, j 1 Westward, In despair our eyes we lift, There, straight up through clouds ! and darkness, Shines God’s glory through the ! rift. ' Mighty God, Supreme Creator, 1 i Bring the lands to own Thy power, 1 Gather them in bonds of friendship, i Guide us past this evil hour. ; | Anxious ones in prayer and practice, j Hold thou fast thy peace of mind; . God is Love and love is faithful, Love is strong and true and kind. , —I. Knowles ! 1 i; THE CHRISTIAN HOME j An important article in the current • issue of the International Review of ■ Missions deals with the Christian i home. The writer argues that “if we I believe that the family is the underlying foundation of human society, | the creation of God Himself, the cell from which all other human re- j lationships take their origin, it is well worth while to pause and look at what is happening to the home in our days. For a place where we keep our things and only hasten away from is not a home. We must, first of all realise what thoughts, memories, and associations rise up in our mind when we use the word ‘home.’ Do we not naturally think of two things; the home of our childhood, and the home we are building up for our children, or for the people we live with ? Those who have been brought up in a Christian home that deserves that name will think of their early impressions of family worship, of prayers and Bible stories heard from their mother and father, of Christmas Eve and other festivals, , all of them memories associated with the Christian character of their home, memories they cannot forget.” IRRITATING TYPE OF PERSON There is a type of individual who comes to the prayer meeting—to the church service sometimes—and remarks reproachfully, as though the minister were to blame for it, “Where is everybody tonight?” A writer in Zion’s Herald has been confessing to being similarly annoyed and asks: “I wonder if someone remarked when Jesus was talking to the Twelve: ‘Not much like the crowds we used to have when John the Baptist was preaching over by j the Jordan’.” Did Peter say, when , the chosen three went with Jesus up

the Mount of Transfiguration: “It will hardly pay to have a prayer meeting today; there are so few of ! us?” In these days of small gatherings there is a little comfort to be had from thinking of those days in Palestine when the most influential meetings ever held were only sparsely attended.—Ezra, in the Methodist Recorder. ATHEISMS CHALLENGE The terrible menace, with which Christianity and, in fact, all religion is faced, is indicated by recent news reports from Russia to the effect that instruction in atheism is obligatory in all schools. To prepare teachers for their new duties, a pedagogical institute for instruction in atheism is to be established. Jarpslavsky, head of the Society of the Godless, has declared that atheism is in the last stage of its fight with religion. By 1967, he predicts, after half a century of Communism, Russia’s 230,000,000 souls will be completely godless. Thus are the forces of evil working to overthrow religion. What will the world be like 50 years hence, if they succeed ? Christian people everywhere should be awake to the danger of this insidious propaganda and do their utmost to combat it. The enemy is truly coming in like a flood in these days. Well may we pray that the Spirit of the Lord shall raise up a standard against it and that the godly of all lands shall rally to that standard as never before.— The War Cry (New Zealand). THE PATH OF BLESSING ' There never has been a spiritual revival which did not begin with an acute sense of sin. We are never prepared for a spiritual advance until we see the necessity for getting rid of that which has been hindering it, and that in the sight of God is sin. And with this consciousness the soul will cry out for Christ, for Christ in all His fullness as Pardoner, Cleanser, Enricher, as Lord and Lover; and He is made all this to us, and much more, by the Holy Spirit. Out of such an experience, of Christ will grow every other experience, and no Christian who is living in the will of God will ever fail to fulfil all the obligations in the outlaying field of life.—Dr. W. Graham Scroggie. i FORDING UNKNOWN RIVERS And Abram journeyed, going on still. The incident that gave Andrew Fuller his text for the famous ser- ' mon on faith preached to the Northamptonshire Association is full of illumination. There had been heavy rain. The rivers were flooded, and at one crossing Fuller, who was riding on horseback, hesitated. A farmer watching him, shouted, “Go on, sir, you are quite safe.” Fuller urged his horse into the water, but when it rose to the saddle he stopped again. “Go on, sir; all is right!” came the voice, and Fuller found in a few paces that the water shallowed. “We j walk by faith, not by sight.” But | our walk is on solid ground, though ‘ it is hidden from us.