RELIGIOUS WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 222, 16 September 1905, Page 10

RELIGIOUS WORLD.

RELIGIOUS JOT. |J i By Dr. George Matheson.) '. (1 no burdeu oa the Sebb&th Dar.'" \l jerexai&li s.viL HX. j s Did you ever - ask yotirsetf why the ; f J«rkv forbade work on Sunday? It 5? '. commonly thought that tbe prohibition n originated in his gloomy views of relireiigion—in bis tendency to regard wortihip as a penaii'ee. I believe ihe mo- - live was just tie opposite. 1 ihink t.hr design of the command was to a??oriatc the Sabbath whh brightness. Wherefore is h said. "Bear no burden i dd tbe Sabbath Day"? Is it meant to i 1 f-iiggest a privation? N", it is intended to <-ODvey a privilege —the sense of a holiday.* The Jew associated bis ( >abbath with the absence of a burden. I He associated it with leisure of mind . and ireedoru of body. He linked it -with the idea of pleasure, be bound it 3 to th? heart with a thread of prold. - Ji : j- a- if be had said: r Let your Sab- • festi) W a happy day. a bnrdenless day. a flowery day. Let it be a day when j; mil will have a of release from Toil, of freedom from worry, of email- ; espalier, care. Let it be a day irom t hich gloom .-hail vanish, in wLK-h }oy ?hal! reijm. Let it be 3 day for the birds to sing, for the brook? to • vrarhle. frr 1 he sunbeams to play. Let meu i.bink uf God's- present* as an hour of revelry, a> an abandoning of care, a;- a rel<-s?-e from the trammels of the , sr-bool. L"T Them receive God's Kingdom wp a liTtle child receive a toy." Forbid. 0 Father, that 1 should ever tssociatp Thy service with a burden! I EhaU nevr serve Thee well till the ! burden is iallec from mc. till it i? bur- | ied in tne As long as Martha is j cumhered. she works badly. My soul j is unlike a steamship: it only goes | rapidly when it is without effort. I j sin never quit-? active till I am pas- ■ sive—uiire-ifctiTi£ in Thy hand- If 1 am to serve Tbe«, J must be captivat- \ ed by Thre. Take my heart captive. | *O Lord, and it will be free. 1 speak J of mv Sunday duties, of ir.y relig-jou? j responpibilitJ' j s. These are not the j words of love, of the captivated heart, j Fihall the lark meditate on the duty of i #is morning sonir! fhall the child say. . ''•My father will >>p angry if 1 do not j ask him for a holiday: , ." Jt is- not the ! i=ense of duty I wG«ld cultivate; it is • the r-mr-e of privilege. Why should j jny heart bf tie only creature which , does not ring in its element! Thou art its eleroe-nt, O God: why does it not sing in Thee' The lark"? element is Jbe morning, and it trffls in the morn- \ ing. The nig-fatingrale's elemem is the shadow-, and it sings in ihe shadow. The fish* element is the sea, and it leaps, iji the sea. The ofs element is the meadow, and it browses in the meadow. But I never leap before the Beautiful Gate of my temple, O Lord; I seek ; thp dirge instead of the dance, the sil- j \nee instead of the song. When shall 1 i be r-augbt up to mw Thee in the air! ' When shall 1 repair to Thee -a.= the ! hart repairs to the water-brooks. Wben shall 1 seek Thy tabernacles a? the swallow seeks her nesi ': When dtiiy shall te merged in love, when law [ shali melt in privilege, when service ! shal] find that it is fret- Then shall ! the burden fall from the Sabbath Day. | KTBLE CRITICISM ITS KESTJXT. fßy the Eight Rev. T. E. Wilkinson, D.D-. An*rliean Bishop for Northern and C-eatral E-urope.i There are two ways of criticising tbe Bible. The reverent, prayerful, but echolariy way of which, with all its faults, we have a fair type in the German Professor Harna-ck and the ho&tile rationalistic a.ttitude puxf-ued by Colenso. ivhieh i≤ in effect, and perhaps intention, only destructive. The destructives begin with thf Old Testament, and. finding their would-be destructive theories upset Ly unlookedfor dis<-overiei. they turn xo the New. That their critic-isms there will ultimately meet the same fate, there can be little doubt. God can take care of His own Truth. Such critics, and their criticisms have their day. do inealcula,blemischief, and cease to be. 1 com* upon many libraries in England, and through North and Central Europe, but I never find Colenso 7 ? books upon their ehelves. What has become of them I cannot say. but that their feebleness seems to have carried in tbem the elements of their own dissolution, Coleoso's mathematical!y - arrived • at conclusions have lon-r since been shattered to pieces. He did not know what tbe stone* crying out have told us .-inee his day. He endeavoured to make us believe it "was impossible t-hat so sma.ll a <"ou3!try as Bashan could have held so many town? as the Bible records. At that time .Basban an unexplored land- Mr. Porter, of St. Peter's College, < ambridge. visited Bashan. and found the of tie- exact number f>f town- stated in ihe Bible, as told v≤ in his "Giant '"ities of Bashan." Professor Sayce ?nd Mr. Pinches, of the British Museum, tell us the same tale of the stones crying- out in defence ef God"? truth against rash assertions ■upon =ur-h question* as "Could Moses have written the Pentateuch ?" The former tells us that "thanks to the marvellous development of Oriental archaeology. fTt>m Egypt, from Babylonia, from Assyria—nay, from Palestine itself —old literatures and inscribed monuments were pouring in coeval with the accounts of the Patriarchs and of Moses, and offering numberless tuniti-Pi for testing tbe truth of the an"iquity of the Pible record. We now knew that the Mosaic Age in the East ■a as a highly litirary one—as literary. m tact, as the age of the Renaissance in Europe. Contemporaneous documents vere eoEstantly being discovered which proved that the discredited statements of Genesis axe, after all. true and hittoricaL"' It i≤ tiiought by some shallow, se-lf-euffieient •"" T '^ s that it is an index of intellect to discredit the Bible. Are ~uch awj.re that our greatest scientists Lave been and are believers in the Word of God? When eminent,representative men. In all branches of science—Xewton. Murehison, .Stokes, Hngh Miller. Faraday. Btepaenson. KawhnsoD. Lord Kelvin, Sir Oliver Lodge and a host of others too numerous tv enumerate, have believed the Bible to be the Word of God. who aie tiese? is comparison, thai question it? Do they know that at. meeting vi the British Association for" the Advancement of Science in 1865, 600 scientists oi Mgaea. eminence signed a document to lie effect that they openly professed belief in the trath atiH authenticity oi the Bible, and that document can be seen by any who eaxe to inquire for it in the Bodleian Library at Oxferd. Professor Hani&ck, upoc the JLesirrcalled ia question by the 3vew Testament for all else ac may bare ventured wfeen be "Tbe story of Them&s is u>ld for

the exclusive purpose of impressing upon us that we most lurid the Easter f rniti even "without tie Easter message. 'iJlessed are they wbo have not seen, and yet j have believed-' - - - Tbe Easter mes- | Rage tells tis thai the wonderful event in j •Joseph of Arbna-thea's garden, which, j however, no eye saw . . . thai this j grate was tie birthplace of the inde- j st-rnctible belief that death ii- vanquish- | ed- and 1 liaX there is a life eternal. ' Professor I>mnrnK>nd sums it all up in rl>w words; "The alternatives <>f The ini.ellect.uaJ life aTe Christianity of Ag- . nosticism. Tbe agnostic is right wien be triLmpeta his incompleteness. He who ie not complete in Him must be . lot ever incomplete."' To queue a "last testimony and one ; laxely given t-o us by the bonest. scientific George Romanes.. After all his wanderings from the Faith he too came back at la.«i to dawn-. "It is Christianity : or nothing." And u> a,dd in truly poetic sadness: "Amen, cow lettept Tiion Tny servant. Lord. Depart in according to Ttit wortl: i Althoucli mine eyes may Dot baTe fully j seen Thy jrreat Safration, surely there nave | been [ EnoDjrh of sorrow and enough of Fient J. To show the way from darkness into j • Lapht: Euonfh of f<rr B«>B.Ro,n to disrJoef The more 1 learn tic less my knowledge grows." CHURCH KE\TS A3TD HOTBS. Mr -1. D- MilL formerty assistant secretary of the Sydney V.M.C.A., bass been appointed general secretary of the L'hristthurc-h V.M.C.A., New Zealand. The -Chrit-tiau Leader." a London iottrnal, has been purchased by tbe wellknown publishers Thomas Nelson and Sons, and has appeared under the new title of the "Scottish Review," which is to be the recognised weekly organ of the United Free Cbiircb. According to the "Foreign Field" (Wpe. Me-tb. Lond.) the latest statistics show that the evangelical missionary societies throughout the world support and direct at present 701 miEsionary physicians (male) and 23S women physicians: they own 395 missionary hospitals and 770 dispensaries: also 57 asylum* for opium victims, and 78 leper asylumsThe Dean of Canterbury has recently stated that up to near the end of July the total number of those wbt> signed ! tbe memorial against the use of a disi tinctive vesture for the Holy Communion, presented to the Joint Session of the House of Laymen, was nearly 10.000. not 1600. as reported in the "Churei i Times." The new Ctarrch hymnal (Anglican) is to be published by Mr Frowde, at the Oxford University Press Warehouse, about the end of this year. Thp wordsand tho words and music editions will , : appear simultaneously, and there wil.' be even a twopenny edition, free grants ! being also made to parishes adopting Itbe book. ! Thp Rev. Canon Pymar Dodd. of Ade laide. has compiled and published a tabu lar statement of the Australian supply of Anglican <lergy for three years. The j ! number of licensed clergy in 1004 j i;throughout Australia) w*s 3013. aad ! the number of candidates for Holy Or j ders receiving theological training m I all the dioceses is 135. The total number licensed in 1902 was 975: in 1903 390 ; so thai there has been a gradual increase during the past three years. The Rev. W- Carlile. honorary chief secretary of the Churefe Army in Eng land, was about to visit tbe Continent at the end of July, accompanied by some gentlemen interested in the work , of the Anglican Church Army, '"with the j object of inspecting on the spot some ol ' the labour colonies in Belgium and Ho] land, in order to assist him in perfecting a scheme lor similar colonies in Eng I land." The English Church Congress, 1905. ' will meet in Weymouth from October 3 Ito 6. The subjects for discussion in ! dude "The Permanent Value of the Old I Testament." "Christianity and Wealth," Their Nature, History, and Lessons," "Lay Work." "Christian Mar ! riage." "Working of the Divorce Acts," j "Education." "Church Work in the Army ! and Navy." and "The Church and Pro soners." Mr J. J. Tirgo, secretary of the Syd j ney V.M.C.A., has returned from a visit 1 ! to" Melbourne, and as the outcome of a I conference -with the Melbourne Board ! and Mr H, A. Wheeler, secretary of the 1 J Interstate Council, it has been decided jto recommend the Australian board of I management to invite Mx R. C. Morse, I M-A-. at present jreneral secretary of ' the American International Committee, '■ to ta-ke the position of supervising- secretary for Australasia for a term of two or three years. Mr Evan Boberts. the Welsh Revi^raJI i ist, has just received two very interest- | ins letters —one from the Rev. Wi.liam ! i Muller. of the Chitrcb Missionary Soeij ety. Fooehow. China~ asking him and . ; hi.-, "Spirit-fiJled consecrated workers to I plead that God will fill the American ; i and English missionaries in China." Tht ■ other is from a Welshman in Ponga- . kawa. via Rotoruft. New Zealand, re- ; I questinjr "the prayers of Christians in i J voar district for all my family and the inhabitants of Pongakawa and this disi trict." I Genera] Booth only reached Dover -! late on Sunday. July 30th. after sis ■ months' absence from England, during 1 which time he travelled 30,000 miles, coni j ducted 140 meetings, and saw more than f 2000 people at the penitent form. Yet jhe was off three days later from Dover, ■ i where be has rested since his return ' i t-o England, on a forty-two days' motor •tour to Scotland and back. Tht' pro- . • gr.?s* io Glasgow will take in dozen? 1 of towns and scores of villages. Of the ! former. Swindon, Abingdon, Northamp--1 ton. Rugby, Leicester, Derby, Cbester--5 field, and Barnsley will all be afforded " the chaace of meeting the General. FtI ther north will come Brighouse, Ke"gh- " ! ley, Settle, Lancaster. Kendal, Whitehaven, Maryport. Wigtown, and Car--1 . lisle. The General will ride in a car - painted ophite with red wheels. THE WOMAH % HEART r J She nfpr said. "'1 love yon not."' but when i , Sbe was all fearful that she loved too mu(h: She nrr-er took her hand from yours—but ttieu f When most siu , craved its touch. » Sh* Devtr laughed at vnn bnt when she iaio ') "Wonld he tCK> ifnder. Nerer turned atra* - SaTe when pacb impulse urged her onet j again j Tβ listen and u> stay. 9 A women's heart is like a witch's prayer— To l>e read bacJrward and its craft defied. ' , Ai. jtiige us pot by xbeee poer lies w« c dare. I Bm by tbe trethj w* bj&e . p — Tieodosia Girrisoa. in "Tb* T"*«Ui- " cih Century Iloiae.'"