SUNDAY COLUMN

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 302, 28 September 1940, Page 3

SUNDAY COLUMN

NEWS OF THE CHURCHES. DEVOTIONAL READING. (Conducted by the Ashburton Ministers’ Association) , THE PLUS SIGN. During the Great War two French soldiers wane walking across a tom and tumbled region in t-lie “line,” and in the sinister evening light they saw suddenly before them against the west a cross stand, out on a ridge, black and upright where all else had collapsed.. ' They halted, much moved in their souls. . Then the one said to the other: “Look, the plus sign!” In all the appalling negation! of war. there: it stood, the Cross of Christ, the plus sign ! “WHAT .... I? Thou the Cross didst hear. What hear I?” Thou the thorns didst weair. What wear I ? Thou the death didst dare. What dare 1 ? Thou for me dost care. What care: I?” THE WAY OF THE CROSS. 1. Self-discipline. “If' any man will come after Me let him deny himself. — Matt. 16:24.

2. Detachment. “Let him take up his cross.” —Matt. 16:24.

3. Suffering.. “And they compelled Simon, a Cyrenean, who passed 1 by, to bear His Cross.” —Mark 15:21. 4. Personal Relationships. “Love begtli all things.”—l Cor. 13:7. 5. Sympathy. “Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.” — Matt. 8:17. “NAEBODY WANTS HIM!” A woman was dying in, a nooir quarter of an industrial town. She was lying, as the poor lie, in a kitchen bed and was very weak, in quiet, broken speech, she said: “Last- night I saw my Saviour. He had four angels with Him. They were very tall and dressed in shining purple. He was dressed in white and He stretched out. His arms to me. He was sae bonny— and miebody wants!”

TWO STREAMS. “Caesar crossed the Rubicon To win an empire crown, And all who dared oppose his sway He ruthlessly heat down, Until he straddled o’eir the world And his ambition won ; But men and women cursed the day He crossed the Rubicon.” “Jesus passed o’er Cedar Brook, Though well He knew lor Him Awaited on the farther brink, Hell’s terrors stark and grim The bloody sweat, the traitor kiss The Cross His soul that shook; But a ransomed world acclaims the night He passed o’er Cedar Brook. “To ali of us there comes a time 'When we our lives- decide: .Shall we. to vain ’ ambition yield, To selfish whims and wide ? Or shall we in self-sacrifice Follow the ford Christ took ? With Caesar cross the R.ubicouii, Or Jesus Cedar Brook?” —Wi Ilia in Paterson. A CROWN OF THORNS. “Once long ago, the legend saitli, A child there lived in Nazareth, And in His little garden, there The roses blossomed rich and fair. Audi when His roses blossomed: well, That Child went forth His friends to tell. To ciach companion of His play He gave a lovely rose that day. Then said His playmates unto Him: ‘0 Christ Child ’tis a foolish whim; See all Thv rosetrees are bereft, For Thy own: self noi flower is left.’ ‘Take ye the flowers,’ he* said, ‘lor

see, The plant hath other fruit for me.’ And His sweet brow- He did adorn. That Christ Child with a. crown of thorn.” THE HIDDEN HAND. “I would go forward stumbling through the dark, After my wayward will; A hidden hand withholds me suddenly, Firm, strong and still. “I would go back to what I left be-

hind, The laughter and the night; The hidden haind quick grips me,

turns me round Towards the light. “I feel the red wound in its beating palm; And, though I cannot see, I guess that somewhere that deep

bitter scar Was borne for me. “For me, or such another as myself, Wounding, and pain and. loss . . . So: I go forward, all the way of love. Led by a Cross.” —Lauchlaiii' Maclean Watt. THE CROSS, “The Cress was to have cruel planks of wood Before He came— A. grim unlovely instrument, it stood For death and shame; And only those in lowest ranks Of sin. were hung upon those planks Before he came. “The Cross is our Salvation and our Goal Because He died. Since He, to make repent,atnt sinners

whole, Was crucified ; No greater honour may we know — That to exalt the Cross, below. Whereon He, died.” —H. B. G. Sutherland.