RELIGIOUS WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 113, 12 May 1917, Page 14

RELIGIOUS WORLD.

TTSE OB LOSE. (By FRANK OLIVER HALL, D.D., the Church of the Divine Paternity, N.Y.) i "Tli-en lie which had received the I one talent ca?ne." —Matt., xxv., 24. Most of us, I am sure, sympathise with this one talented man, because most of us are one talented persons ourselves. We feel that this man was not treated fairly. It does not seem just to expect a man to accomplish anything with one talent when another has been given five. Most of us have felt the temptation to try to hide behind our own littleness. When a man discovers that he is one talented, and that the chances are he will never rise very high or accomplish great things, there comes a period of discouragement when he feels that it is useless to try. A young man enters college with exalted dreams of what he. will accomplish in the world. He will be a great scientist. After a time he discovers that he has Dot the ability that many of his companions possess. They do with ease ■what he can accomplish only with prolonged effort. So he says to himself, *"What is the use? I can never successfulh- compete with these men. Therefore I will not try." Or one starts in the business world, saying, "I will amass a fortune. I will become a power in the financial world." He discovers soon that other men have more ability than ho, know hpw to organise industry, have the faculty of foreseeing the market. He cannot compete with them, becomes discouraged and ceases to try. Are we to excuse such people for giving up the struggle? Well, God does not excuse them. The same law operates with reference to them as in the lives of two talented and five talented people. Use or lose. If you will not use to the utmost the ability you possess it shall be taken away.. The trouble with the one talented man was that he had not done his best. He was assigned a certain task and neglected it. It was not that he lacked opportunity. He did not have the excuse that the times were hard. Business was good. His fellow servants had each gained a hundred per cent. Yes, business was excellent. But he comes haltingly to make excuse for failure. Notice the mock modesty. Notice the false position in which he undertakes to place the one who has trusted him:—"l knew thee that thou art a hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth; 10, thou hast that is thine." That is a misrepresentation. By his dealing with these other two men the master proved that he was not "hard." God rewards a man, in himself, if he will but make an honest and earnest effort to do his best. It is only to the cowardly and the indolent, the "slackers" that He appears to be a hard master. So the master takes the servant at his own. word. "If thou knewest that I was a , , hard master thou shouldst have taken so much the more pain's to please mc." There is no excuse for the cowardly. ' When we have done our best, God is continually saying, "Well done." When we have not done our best we must puffer tire consequences. The penalty is this: "Take thou the talent from him!" Use or love. That is the law of life,chukch: news and notes. In consequence of the war the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Church will not be held in 1918. The revenue of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand was £156,000, of which £16,800 was contributed for mission work. The Rev. James Paierson. of Wellington, has completed his diamond jubilee as a minister of the Presbyterian Church. He was ordained at St. Peter's, Liverpool, in April, 1857. The Terrace Congregational Qhtirch at Wellington celebrated its sevemty-fifth anniversary last Sunday. Tbe first Congregational Church in New Zealand was formed in 1842. The Rev. Richard William Dugdale, C.F., formerly curate of Rugby, has been awarded the Military Cross for tending wounded under fire in most advanced positions, also guiding stretcher-bearer parties to bring them in. The Dean of St. Paul's, preaching at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, said that in one of the recently discovered sayings of Jesus, found in the sands of Egypt, was the passage: "Jesus said.: 1 stood in the midst of the world and in the flesh. I ■was seen of them and I found all men drunken and none athiret.'" The attempt to establish a State religion in China, which would mean caueing Mohammedans, Protestants and Catholics to pay for the upkeep of Confucian priests, has raised a protest from 3,500,000 Christians in that great country. This protest denominates the proposal as an invasion of the rights of the citizens of the Chinese Republic. "For the people had a mind to give" applies to those who attended the anniversary services at St. David's Presbyterian Church last Sunday. Special collections were taken up at all servicee towards the liquidation of the debt on the manse, and the result was the satisfactory sum of £335. Captain-Chaplain W. Ready, who arrived recently in a hospital ship, and preached at his old church, Pitt Street Methodist, has two sons at the front and one in training. While in London Mr. Heady saw Chaplain Luxford, who is still working for the comfort of our boys, notwithstanding the fact that he has lost a leg. The Rev. Father John Francis O'Donnell, pastor in charge of the QueenstownArrow Roman Catholic Church for the past twenty years, died on Thursday last. Born in 1852, in County Limerick, Ireland, he. was ordained priest in 1889 at All Hallows College, and came out to Dunedin with the late. Bishop Moran in October of the same year. He became curate of Milton in November, 1889, and continued till June, 1893. Father O'Donnell then became missioner-in-charge at Palmerston till October, 1896, when he ■was stationed at Queenstown lsla^ B Brent ' B^ hop of thp Philippine ! (America) entry iJZ * count ry's stood to-day where she was 4 ca clearly what the people of Britain saw™ clearly when they took their stand and committed themselves to God and His cause.