SUNDAY COLUMN

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 79, 13 January 1940, Page 3

SUNDAY COLUMN

NEWS OF THE CHURCHES. (Conducted by the Ashburton Ministers’ Association). LOVE'S TASK, “Love ever gives—forgives—outlives, And ever stands with open hands. And while it lives, it gives, For tiffs is love’s prerogative — To give—and give—and give.” —Oxenham. “THE ROAD IS THE SYMBOL OF LIFE.” “Time never made A better beauty since the Earth, was laid, Than that thanksgiving given to grey hair For the gift of life which brought them there.”

What we call life is simply a road stretching from somewhere to somewhere. Its two ends arc enveloped in mist; we know not whence we came or whither we go. Of these termini! the great Teacher said “I came from the Father”; “I go unto the Father.” Wo only know that as “111 the beginning God created,” so at the end, God will consummate our human life. There is something, however, that is of still greater importance, namely that God is our Unseen Companion, our Unerring Guide and Unfailing Lover on the road of life. “Fear not . . Jacob . . I am with thee, I will help thee.” “And Jacob went on his way.” What various thoughts rumbled in his mind as. he journeyed. He had set out upon the road of life with high resolve, but had made a muddle of things. Human nature is complex—a mixture of good and evil, of gold and clay. Other human influences worked upon Jacob moulding and fashioning liis ideals, making or breaking his resolutions, “No man liveth to himself alone.” Jacob, however, learned this—that human nature was the ladder set up from earth to heaven and that his thoughts, emotions, and his actions, were the rungs thereof. So in his dream he found the meaning of his successes and his failures, his joys and his sorrows, his aspirations and his ambitions, all those things which make up the thing we call life. “And Jacob went on his way.” It was with a flash of true insight that the book which ranks next to our Bible was named “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” Matthew Arnold sang:— “A wanderer is man from his birth, He was born ill a. ship On the breast of the river of time. Brimming,with wonder and joy He spreads out his arms to the light, Bivets his gaze on the banks of the stream. But what was before us we know not, And we know not what shall succeed.”

Yet the Christian journeys on and like the ancient people of Israel, he journeys “towards the sunrising.’ There is a spiritual suggestiveness in that geographical note. The Christian never goes “West.” His destiny is in an Eastward direction. Birth and death are blit gates and whatever the first leads to the other lead> “towards the sunrising.” The light shat is l upon the Christian’s face is the light of a rising sun. “Keep your laces towards the sun and the shadows will fall behind you,” is a motto for the journey through this world of temporal things, but in that world of eternal , verities “there is no need of sun, for the glory of the Lord doth lighten it.” The enveloping light creates no shadow. What, however, is the rule ol the road? It is faith. “We walk by faith, not by sight.” Faith throws its kindiy light upon the road for every pedestrian. He need have no fear about the way for “the Lord knoweth the way.” it is the fear of to-morrow that perplexes the human heart and man lias to find a remedy for that fear. Faith is the remedy-—the only- remedy; it is the antithesis and antidote for fear. As Dr. Fosdick says:—

“Fear imprisons life; faith liberates it. Fear paralyses life; faith empowers it. Fear disheartens life; faith encourages it. Fear sickens life; faith heals it. Fear depresses life; faith gladdens it.”

“Faith is a basic power in human personality, like love and hope, which, when well used, is a builder of wholesomeness and health.” As “Jacob went on his way, the angels of God met him.” The kindly light of faith always reveals the angels God sets upon the way to replenish the human traveller. The great temptation which the pilgrim has to encounter is the opening up of other ways other than the Goddestined way. So Jesus discovered hut he also discovered through faith that “the angels of God ministered unto Him.” “Have faith in God!” It is not in what we believe, but in whom we have faith that will carry us on our journey. “I Inunv whom I have believed.”