SUNDAY READING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9617, 15 September 1894, Page 4 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING.

CHRIST IN THE BOAT. Part I.

On August 1 Mr. McNeill preached in the Town Hall to a vast audience from the story of Christ walking on the sea—Mark iv. 35 ad fin. He said:—

Now I would like to begin at the end, so to speak. " And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another"—in a terrified whispering—" What manner of man is this that even the wind and the sea obey Him?" hat these disciples said at the end of this story I should like we should say at the beginning, and say it all through ; only you know there is such a difference the way we say a thing. They said, "What manner of man is this that even the wind and the sea obey Him ?" and they said it with a chill of fear that went to the marrow, with parted teeth, and trembling lips, and shuddering frame : " What manner of man is this?" DIFFERENT TONES. Now notice. We can say the very same thing to the very last syllable, but we can say it adoringly, rapturously, and confidently, as if we knew the answer to our own question. We can say it with a shout instead of a shivering whisper, " What manner of man is this that even the wind and the sea obey Him ?" as if we would say, " Come, high or low, rain or sunshine, storm or calm, what matters it: I am sailing the seas with Him. How happy, then, ami!" Now, just begin and strike that key note. I wonder why they said it with a shiver, " they feared exceedingly " —nearly fainted, nearly went out of their mind. " What manner of man is this ?" and they had been with Him for some time now, and knew Him better than anybody else did. I think it was something like this : they were just like you and me. Is not there a stage at; which if our religious knowledge does not breed contempt, it breeds a kind of stagnation? We stand still at ditch-water level. We virtually say, " What I don't know about religion is not knowledge. I have been for years in contact with these things, and know all about preaching and worship, and Christian work." Just like what the disciples were. They thought they knew all about Jesus, and, of course, they were not tired of Him; but they had been close to Him, and were just coming to that stage at which you begin to think you know it all, when, suddenly, that morning ! He towered away up above them into Godhead, and infinity, aud immensity I And, as the seas roared above them, and the wind howled round them, they looked as if they had never seen Him before. " What manner of man is this Our Jesus! And they looked at Him with startled eyes and beating, throbbing hearts. My friends, I would : not be sorry if the same thing came to some of us. God be praised for the surprising mercy, or God be praised for the judgment that brings to you and me that shock that lifts us out of dulness and stagnation into the knowledge of God and of His Son Jesus Christ. For we are all apt to get into the doldrums, and spin round about Tike a bit of wood in a back eddy, while the main stream goes on to the ocean without us. " What manner of man is this ?" I repeat it, God be praised for the surprising mercy, or the staggering judgment that catches you a blow between the eyes, and makes you think it is time you repeuted of your past Christianity, and began over again at the beginning. They thought they knew all about Him, but that morning he shot up above them into Godhead 1 " What manner of man is this?" THE UNKNOWN IN CHKIST. Jesus takes a deal of knowing. It is pot in a day, or a month, or a year, or a lifetime that you will get to the end of Him. " Walk about Zion and go round." Go round, go round man! You have not been half round the city yet. Look at Him from all sides, and look again. He takes a deal of knowing. He is no end of a Saviour. " Age cannot wither nor custom stale His infinite variety." There is a perpetual newness and open-eyed wonderment and surprise in Jesus Christ. Perhaps some of us are just beginning to think, "Now I am already perfect, and if you want to know about religion, come and ask me." My friend, there is nobody in such dense darkness as you. Have you ever thought of those poor idolaters— in India? Picture one of them: think of his coming with his rice and his fowls, or his chickens, to lay them down before that poor, dim, hideous, grinning idol by way of worship; and he comes bowing and bending, and with fear in his step as he comes with gifts to offer at the feet of that carved and grinning image. Try and think how would you feel if that thing suddenly lifted its cold ivory hand and touched him, and opened its scared empty eyes and looked at him 1 What a .thrill would go through him. The day is to dawn when that thrill will go through you, and strike through your poor, besotted, idolatrous soul, and make you exclaim, " God lives God lives. There was a time when He was only a name in a book to me, only a name in a book; and I sang it a thousand times. But now it dawns upon me God lives! He has touched me. He has looked at me ; I have seen Him. Something like that went through these disciples. May God give it to all ot us ! It will bring a mighty revival of the best kind into our hearts—a revelation of God as a living God. For to many of us He is a mere dumb idol: your heart has never wakened up to believe that God is, and is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. THE LOWLY CHRIST. How did all this happen story of Jesus stilling the tempest and working this great deliverance, that was such an eyeopening thing and soul-subduing thing ? It happened thus : It was at the close of a busy day, and our blessed Master had been preaching and healing diseases among that crowd that continually followed Him Think of the exhaustion of it; not only preaching to' but healing those peoplekeeping at it for hours together—and at the close of the day all the accommodation He could get was to step on board an old, ill-smelling fisherman's boat, and sink down in the stern, and lay His blessed head down on the only soft thing there was—not a pillow, fishermen don't carry pillows, but only what is known as a fisherman's cushion—and then, worn out with sheer exhaustion, fall fast asleep. I cannot get over that. When I see Jesus stepping aboard of that boat at the close of such a busy day ; when I see the manner of the Man, I feel inclined to Bay at the beginning, " What manner of man is this?" for lowliness, for self-forgetfulness, for condescension, and sweet humility; for being stone-dead to the things you would burst your little heart about. You would have thought of yourself, and who and what you are. Just look at Him and remember who He was as shown in the end of the narrative. The mighty God. The Lord God of Hosts, who rules the raging sea, and when the waves thereof arise He stilleth tbem! That is the manner . of this Manthe Lord God of Hosts ! And yet at the close of a busy day He laid His Head on a fisherman's cushion. Listen! Four-and-twenty hours of that Man's spirit of lowliness and self-forgetful-ness | would so sweeten the breath of Melbourne and your home that you would not know it. Oh, the fragrance that that breath brings with it! How it sweetens the home ! The spirit of Jesus is the spirit of meekness and self-forgetfulness, and utter absolute meekness. Remember that awful text, " If any man has not the spirit! of Christ ho i*J

none of His;" and that Man's spirit wITT meekness and self-f orgetf ulE* Ton Ute eat and drink the sacramental elern*n\ m 7 you. drug your aoul,buHf you have spirit of Ciiristyou are noiSffiK. 1 ,V h ,« never see the blessed One. S<s ju?ttW of how we carry on. If « <w? JE? i. th ! nl « is due to us, anSif we arTnot bowed dew*? 1 andcommendedUnd get all things fin ? our °™ valuation, there will be £ Ua l< aboard the boat. ' (Laughter.) rJ*ft there are many homes and congregation* Melbourne, and it is terribly dirty Sath' a aboard the boat, and it is the lack 0 s*. spirit that causes it. But if they Ift' Lord all strife would still down and > might almost see that brooding SnirS y i° a Mending like a dove on that conere»sn„ e " This stilling of the tempest K5" . that need never have been wrought C%,■ 6 ought never to have needed to K0 affi! that boat There were people \W houses on the lake front, and we can irnlin* that when the evening came on they 3 flay,. •« I wonder where that preacher 7Ll d to-night;' but they did not ask ? flim i, "ffi did not look like a gentleman in His ron»k! clothes. No! God save us from the SB made gentleman—coat and vest 7i, w Laughter.) Oh. you laugh! He did JJ look like a gentleman; and the discing who were helping Him in His eva.3 work and His medical mission, were pv? dently working men, and those big teoiu with plenty of accommodation kept the! houses to themselves. But they wilf h» about it on that day—"l was a strand You remember one afternoon up near th« lake I was a stranger, and ye took Me not in* I was hungry, and ye never asked Ale whirl I was to get My bread ; and I had to ° 0 i„ „ an ill-provided fisherman's boat." They will hear about it. Ah, my friends, have an eig in your heads for the Lord's poor- show kindness to them, for you may entertain angels unawares; and there was a chance that day for someone to have entertained not simply an angel, but the Lord of Angels • and they missed it badly, didn't they * Be not ye, therefore, like unto them.

THE INIMITABLE THING IN CHRIST. _ "And the same day, when the even wap come, He saith unto them let us pass over to the other side. And when they had sent away the multitude they took Him over as he was"— and tired, wearied in the work but not of it ; utterly exhausted, for it is exhausting work—and He just managed to stagger along to the boat; and I see it ve under the weight of Him till He sank down in the stern, and waved His hand and said "To the other side," and quicker than I carl say it He was asleep. Oh, blessed Jesus 1 Oh, to be like Him ! Well, I cannot be like Him in this respect. I cannot still the tempest, or work miracles; but we can go away home to-night and be so like Jesns that in four-and-twenty hours your best friends will look narrowly at you and say, "Mv| he is so changed ; she is so altered. Before so proud, so selfish, and stubborn, and loud and self-opinionated, and now so quiet and eentle, and easy to be entreated ;" and that is of more value in Melbourne to-day than stilling tempests. Covet earnestly the best gifts. ."'... [Second part next week.]

| GOD'S ELIJAHS IN THE WILDERNESS. Mr. Crawford, a missionary residing at Gazanganze, Central Africa, writes :—"Ever since my arrival here the Mighty One has been filling into the narrow confauesof my life wonder upon wonder, impossibility (so thought and even called) upon impossibility! This famine and fever land in a special and quite extraordinary way clears the field for a full display of the power of His might, for man is often brought low with all his shrewd contrivances, and only Cod can avail. Yet this, I know, instead of repelling any true labourer, will beguile him on. Praise Him for many an unbelief expelling glimpse of His mighty arm made bare. No doubt the civilisation of Britain is all on the side of unbelief. Everything is cut and dry and runs in a fixed grove —comes as a matter of course, not of wonder, Here in the dark we ever and anon reach the bottom of the meal barrel, and we just tell the Lord how that it is time for Him to work, and He never fails to answer in the right, i.e., His time. Only the other day our hearts were right full, albeit our stomach was empty. Tapila, my table boy, came in at the usual time—l 2 o'clock noon— the table (the cloth was sold long ago), and in a matter of fact way laid my plate, knife and fork, and then looked inquiringly for instructions. I answered him by silently pointing upwards, and as, though just then the dinner bell had gone in heaven for my meal, an old woman—who certainly doesn't hear any such heavenly sounds—appeared with a basket of whitest flour, and on her heels came someone with a leg of venison ! Again I was reminded that

" Omnipotence hath servants everywhere, His methods are sublime, His ways supremely kind, bod is never before His time, aiid'never is behind." ONCE. Once 1 was leprous, But Jesus touched me, »nd no spot was seen, The magic of His hand had made me clean. Once I was deaf ; His fingers pressed my ear, and I can hear His slightest whisper, for He's always near. Once I was dumb ; . He touched my parched tongue, and I can speak, And tell Him of the faith that is so weak. Once without strength, Waiting for troubled waters, long I lay. Till Jesus spake, and lo! 1 went my way. Once I was dead ; But Jesus came to me and bade me live. For He who is the Life new life can give. A leper, deaf, and dumb, and weak, and dead, Now cleansed, and quickened into life, and led--A sinner once by nature, now by grace Among the Wood-washed 1 have found a place, And in the courts of Jesus I shall stand, Saved by His Blood, ed thither by His Hand. Chas. Butler-Stonjet.