SUNDAY COLUMN

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 308, 5 October 1940, Page 3

SUNDAY COLUMN

NEWS OF THE CHURCHES. DEVOTIONAL READING. (CONDUCTED ISY THE ASUIIUUTON Ministers’ Association). LIFE EVERMORE. A little over, 100 years ago Michael Faraday revolutionised the world. In August 1831 he showed that electrical currents could be induced. Magnetism ceased to be a toy. No single discovery has held such amazing consequences. Every telephone wive that carries the human voice into distant ears, every telegraph wire above or below the sea, every electric light, every wireless set, every motor-car, and every one of the universal uses to which the electnca current is applied, is due to that epochmaking discovery. The man who made it was surely one of the most simple and sweetest of Christians. He belonged to a little Scottish sect called Sandemanian. He was an elder, and bore the sacred bread to the lips of very humble worshippers, in a veiy unpretentious church. He had a fine scorn for money, and refused to patent his discoveries. He handed them out to a waiting world. To serve men in God’s name was his only desire. One of the prettiest things we remember about him was a visit he paid to a Swiss' cemetery. He came to the paupers’ corner, and saw a grave without a stone. There was a poor boaicl upright and, underneath a little roof, the name and age of: the dead written on paper. But his quick eye saw that a caterpillar had crawled into the crevice and liad stiffened there into a chrysalis. The hard shell had opened. The thing of beauty had flown into the summer. The sight moved his tears,- He bade his wife write that on his tombstone. It stands thus, liik name, his age, an opened chrysalis case, and the words “Nevertheless I Live.’,’ He was a follower of The Son of God, Jesus Christ. Whose grave in the garden of lilies was broken, Who resigns and lives EVERMORE.

If radio’s slim fingers Can pluck a melody From night, and toss it over A continent or sea; If petalled white notes Of a violin Are blown across a mountain ■ Or a city’s din; If songs, like crimson roses Are culled from thin blue air, Why should mortals wonder If God hears prayer? RELIGION. Any man who has a religion is bound to do one of two things with it, change it or spread it. If it isn’t true he must give it up ! If it is true, he must give it away! This is not the duty of ministers only. Religion is not an affair of a profession or of a caste. It is the business of every common man. There is no proxy religion. Each man has his own. JLf he hasn’t, he has none. !No other man can have it for him. And if he has his own, then he must propagate it if it is true, or repudiate it if it is false. WOODFULL’S STORY. Many years ago a young Wesleyan minister was driving along a dry and dusty road toward Melbourne when he noticed a trudging tattered figure of a tramp. “Cave for a lift?” lie asked the man, and it was no sooner said than .done. Reaching the' manse about two hours later, the stranger scrambled down and was about to otter his thanks, when the minister said, “What about a cup of tea?” Again there was a ready acceptance. “There is only one thing I would like better,” he said, “and that is a bit of a wash.” “Perhaps you would like a bath?” suggested the clergyman. And taking it for granted, he ushered the tramp into the bathroom, and gave him soap and clean towels. Then they sat down to tea. Forty years later, during the Great War, a number of Australian soldiers, who were returning to France after sick leave, were resting on a grassj 7 plot, when an elderly man with white hair and a kindly face, approached them. “Australians'?” he asked. “Yes,” ivas thb reply. “We are waiting for our boat.” “Well, Avhat about a little something to eat?”,suggested the stranger. Unanimously agreed. They accompanied the old man to his large house, set in ample grounds, and Avero dined lavishly. When it came to formal introductions, the old man stopped at the mention of “Woodfull,” as the young man stepped forward. “Of course you Avould not be related to a young Wesleyan minister Avho was in Melbourne some 40 years ago?” “That Avould be my father,” ansAvered the soldier.

Thero was a moment of tense, troubled and thoughtful silence. Then in a trembling voice he told his story. The derelict and tramp in Australia; the futility 7 and the despair following the loss of character, sell-respect and friends. “1 was thinking desperately of deep water in Melbourne and the end of everything,” he said, “when the young minister came along . . . that kindly act, the bath, and that clean, white towel started me on a new road. I determined to be a man. This house, these grounds, I owe to that young minister who was your father. I was a stranger and he took me in.” Woodful 1, the Australian cricketer, told the story to a. minister, whose service lie attended.

Suppose the young- minister had smothered the impulse and driven on?