RELIGIOUS WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 305, 21 December 1912, Page 14

RELIGIOUS WORLD.

NO BOOM FOR JESUS.

(By C. H. SPURGEON.)

TART 11. '"' And laid Him in a nranger because there was no room for them in the inn." —Luke ii. 7. EN* CONVERSATION". Tlow little room is there for Christ, to-., in general conversation, which is a-lso like an in-n. We talk about many things. A man may nowadays talk of any subject h-e pleas-ec: no one can stop him and β-ay. "There is a spy catching your wards: be will re-port you to some central authority."' Speech is very free in this Land; but. ah! how little room is there for Christ in general talk! Even f'n Sun.iay afternoon, how little room there U for ("hri>*t in wtne professed Christians' hou«<\-j. They will talk almirt ministi'rs; they will talk about the Sunday school, or the various agencies in connection with 'ho Church. but hoy little they say :i.bon: Chxitrt! And it eomeone should in conversation make this remark: "Co-uld we not epeak upon the Godhead and maniood. the finished Work and righteousness, the ascension, ex the Second Advent of our Lord Jesue," why, we ehould see many, who even profess to be followers of Christ, ■who would hold up their beads and say, "Why, dear mc, that man is quite a fanatic, or else he would not think of introducing such a subject as that into general conversation." Nα, .there ie no room for Him in the inn; to this day He can find but littte access there. IK THE WORKROOM. I address many who are working men. Ton are employed among a gTeat m-any artieans day after day: do you not find, brethren —I k-now you do—that there is very lifcfle room for Christ in the ■workshop? There is room there for everything else; there ie room for po-li-taea, slandere, or in-fid-elities, but there is no room for Christ. Too many of our "working men think religion would he an encumbrance, a chain, a miserable prison to them. They can frequent the theatre, or listen in a lecture hail, -but the House of God is too drea.ry for them. I wish I were not compelled to say so, but truly, in many of our factories, workshops, and foundries there is no room for Christ, the only Saviour of men. The "world is elbowing and pushing for room, ■till there is scarce a corner left where the Baie of Bethlehem can be laid. IN THE TEMPLE OF BACCHUS. As for .th-e hms of modern times—who iwotdd thmk of finding Christ there? Fatting out of our catalogue those iho-tefc and roadside 'houses which are meed-ed for the accommodation of travellers, what greater curse have we than our taverns and pot-houses? Who would ever resort to euch places to find Christ •-there? A3 we3l might we expect to find Him in the bottomless pit! He who i 3 separa-te from sinners finds no fit society in the Temple -of Bacchus. There is mr room for Jesus in the inn. A PERSONAL QUESTION. Have yoa room for Christ? As the palace, and the forum, and the inn have no room for Christ, and as the places of public resort have none, have, you room for Christ? "Well," says one, "I have room for Him, but I am not worthy that He should come to mc." Ah! I did not ask about worthiness; have you room for EELm? "Oh," s-ays one, "I have an empty void the world can never fill!" Ah! I see yoa have room for Him. "Oh! but the room I have in nry heart is so base!" So was the manger. "But it rs so dffipicable!" So was the manger a thing to be despised. "Ah! but my heart id so foul!" So, perhaps, the manger may have been. "Oh! but I feel it is a place not at all fit for Christ!" Nor was the manger a place fit for Him, and yet there was He laid. "Oh! but I have been such a sinner; I feel as if my heart had been a den of beasts and devils!" Well, the manger had been a place wlrere beasts had fed. NEVER MIND THE PAST, Have you rocun for Him? Never mind ■what the past has been; He can forget and forgive. It matters not what even thy present state may be, if thou mournest it. If thou hast but room for Christ He will come in and be thy guest. Oh! if thou hast room for Him, let Him be bcvrn in thy eoul to-day. Do not be afraid to come to the gentle Jesuo. Do not imagine that yon need to be prepared for an audience with Him. or that you wan-t the intercession of a saint, or the intervention of priest or minister. Anyone could have come to the Babe in Bethlehem. The horned oxen, methinks, ate the hay on which He slept, and feared not. Jesus is the triend of each one of us. sinful and unworthy though we be. You poor ones, you need not fear to come, for see, in a stable He is bona, and in a manger He is cradled. HOPE FOR THE WORST. You. have not worse accommodation than His, you are not poorer than He. Come and welcome to the poor man's Prince, to the peasant's Saviour. Stay not back through fear of your unfitness, the shepherds came to Him in all their deshabille. I read not that they tarried to put on their best garments, but in the clothes in which they wrapped thenjeelvee that cold midnight they hastened to-the young Child's presence. God looks not at garments, but at hearts, and aa- j cepts men when they come to Him with willing spirits, whether they be rich or poor. And as for you who have given i up all hope, you will think yourselves I β-o degraded and fallen that there can be no future for you—there is hope for you yet. Turn to God with full purpose of heart, and you shall find a great a destiny in store for you. HE CERTAINLY WILL COME. "To-day, if ye will hear His voice harden not your hearts." '"To-day is the accepted time; to-day is the day of salvation/ Room for Jesus! Room for Jesus now! "Oh,' , saitb. one, "I have I room for Him, but will He come?" Will He come, indeed Do you but 6et the door of your heart open; do but say, "Jesus, Master, all unworthy and un clean, I look to Thee; come, lodge within my heart." and He will come to thee, and He will cleanse the manger of thy heart; nay, will transform' it into a golden throne, and' there' He will sit and rekrn for ever and ever. A FREE CHRIST. Oh, I have such a free Christ to preach to yoii! I would I could preach Him better. I have such a precious, loving Jesus to preach.. He is willing to find a home in humble hearts. What! Are there no hearts here that will take Him in? Are there none who will say, "Come in, come in" ? Oh, it shall be a happy day for yon if 70U shall be enabled to take Him in your arms and receive Him as the consolation of Israel! -You may then look forward even to death with ioy, and say, with Simeon: "Lord, now ietteot Thou Thy servant depart in peace; fcecoxdins to Thy Word, for mine ejee.{

have seen Thy salvation."' My Master wants room! Room for Him. I, His herald, cry aloud, "Room for the Saviour!"' Room! Here is my Royal Master —have yoa room for Him? MAKE ROOM FOR HIM. Here is the Son of God made fleshhave you room for Him ? Here i≤ He who can forgive all em— have you room for Him? Here is He who can take you up out of the horrible pit and out of the miry clay—have you room for Him? Here is He who when He cometh in will never go out again, but abide with you for ever, to make your heart a heaven of joy and bliss for you-—have you room for Him? Tis all I ask. Your emptiness, your nothingness, your want of I feeling, your want of goodness, your i want of grace—all these will be" but I room for Him! Have you room for Him? Oh, Spirit of God, lead many to say, "Yes, my heart k ready." Ah, then He will come and dwell with you. "Joy to the world, the Saviour comes, The Saviour promised long: Let every heart prepare a throne. And every voice a song." I I CHURCH NEWS AND NOTES. 1 Some 120 Sunday schools responded to • the appeal for the Baok-blocke' Mission, I the result being that £150 was received. ! Miss Abby S. Hayhew, director of physical training fox women at the University of Wisconsin, has received an apI pointment from the Chinese Republicans to organise a system of physical training for the women of China. She will work under the auspices of the Young Women's Christian Association. Sam Dailey, an Alabama negro, re- , cently bought a farm of 500 acres with J money saved while working as a servant in the University of that State, and started a home for negro boys. His teachings are "to care for themselves, to I have manners towards all colours, to 1 obey laws, and not to lie." So far he ! has brought up 220 boys. Mr. Dailey refers to his work as picking up niggers from the slums and making Christians of ■ them. I Dr. W. E. Biederwolf, an eminent Ami ericaji evangelist, speaking at a eonferj ence in the Moody Institute recently, : told his fellow-workers that nowadays , he feels ashamed of himself whenever he j looks at the newspaper pictures he used to pose for before he had learned better. And with thia confession the way was opened for him to tell his audience that, in his opinion, there had been entirely too much playing fox stage effects in the ordinary evangelistic methods of the recent past. It has been hard for laymen in the churches who felt these things to say them out so bluntly without incurring the suspicion of being unfriendly to evangelistic work, but if righteous judgment on such methods can come from the evangelists themselves, and they by eturdy self-reform can cure their own faults, they will speedily and gladly find that a great barrier for their work has been removed in many a congregation where they have thought the laymen, if not the pastor, unaccountably cool toward the idea of evangelistic meetings. Professor Rendel Harris received a number of friends in private conference recently for the purpose of considering whether a new revision of the Bible is desirable. As a result of this gathering an important letter appears in "The Times," in which it is pleaded that a fresh revision of the Bible is undesirable at the present time. Further delay, it is urged, is required to sift and present the new materials now in the hands of scholars. Among the signatories to this notable comsmuni-eation, besides Dr. Rendel Harris, are Professors W. H. Bennett, J. Estlin Carpenter, T. Witton Davies, G. Milligan, James -Moffatt, and Principal Skinner. Every one of the sixteen I names is that of a scholar of eminent I rankOnly about 1 per cent, of the total wealth of the United States is invested in church property, but, according to Dr Booker Washington, over 8 per cent, of ! the wealth of the negroes of the country lis invested in this way. They have 35,000 churches, with 3,700,000 members. Recent statistics administer a shock to those who have thought of Germany as still under the spell of Luther. Roman Catholics have increased in Prussia at a greater rate than Protestants since 1871, j and in other parts of the empire since 1890. In 1900 the Roman Catholics formed ■ 36.06 per cent, of the entire population; iin 1905 the percentage had risen to ! 36.46, and in 1910 to 36.69. The explanaj tion given is that, in general, Roman j Catholic families have a larger natural 1 increase than Protestant, and that the I Protestants form a larger proportion of i the population of large towns and of ! the educated and richer classes, where j large families are infrequent. Besides, ! the Poles, who are Roman Catholics, ! have invariably largo families, and most lof the immigrants to Germany from other countries are adherents of the Church of Rome. I Canon Lilley, in an address on "The ! Present Religious Situation in Europe," 1 in the London City Temple lecture hall, j spoke confidently of the coming inevitI able separation between Church and State in Western countries where it had not yet taken place. But separation would increase the militant tendencies of the Church. The Church of the im--1 mediate future would be either engaged lin a vain struggle against the forces lof progress or else would be brought j into living contact with the people, and j would then guide and inspire those I forces. At present the Church seemed to ibe obsessed by an ever-increasing dread iof independence of thought. Mr. Campbell, in expressing the indebtedness of the audience to Canon Lilley, singled out one of his obiter dieta —that Desj cartes, not Luther, had been the real 1 revolutionary in Europe—as an example lof the thought-provoking quality of the lecture. Preaching at St. Paul's Cathedral, Canon Simpson said: "Unfortunately, the tendency of modern life is to substitute speed for thoroughness. We live in an age of speed—nerve, skill, steadiness, and capacity of patience are sacrificed to it." The Rev. Rhondda Williams recently said the churches deserted social reI formers. "Ask Lloyd George." he said, 1 "what attitude the rich Nonconformists of Wales took up on his own Budget. It is quite true that he sprang from the Church, but he did not get the sympathy from the Church for that Budget that you might have expected."' The Baptist Union meeting at Cardiff was attended by 1,500 delegates. Mr. H. M. Hughes commented upon the fact that Wales had given many eminent workers, not the least being the first Baptist Chancellor of the Exchequer— the greatest moral and human asset in the British Government. They gave to the "House of Lords its only Welsh Nonconformist in Lord Pontypridd. The Rev. W. Burbridge, Vicar of St. John's, Cleckbeaton, has placed his resignation in the hands of the Bishop of Wakefield, having accepted an offer from .the Bishop of Bunbury.. Western Australia. According to Mr T. Hughes, chairman of the Welsh Insurance Commissioners, English Baptists contribute 3/6 per head to the Foreign Mission Society, Scotch Baptists 3/, and Welsh I/.