PRESENT-DAY OUTLOOK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 175, 26 July 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

PRESENT-DAY OUTLOOK.

A WITNESS TO CHRIST.

YOUTH IN THE NEW WORLD,

MIND OF CHRIST THE NEED,

The following is taken from a sermon on "Youth and the Present Age," preached recently by the Rev. R. C. Roberts, >D., in Mount Eden Congregational Church: —

"The youth of to-day are facing a world that moves much faster than when we could be called young. The main characteristic of the present age is its rapid catastrophic and sweeping changes. The so-called 'Unchanging East' is changing more rapidly than the West. Agelong customs, hoary-headed traditions, time-honoured ways of doing things are ruthlessly being swept aside. Humanity is on the move. In many ways life presents the appearance of a travelling circus, with a rather serious-looking clown thrown in..

"There seems to be no time to cultivate the fairer graces. The measured, dignified tones and accents of our grandparents have given place to curt, metallic, mechanical, speech of the helter-skelter world of to-day. The speed mania has become a nightmare. Feverish haste has become a master. The quick are those that can get out of the way, and the dead are those that can't. So long as Bpeed spells efficiency we have no quarrel with it. So long as the speed hog knows why he is speeding, where" he is making for, and avoids maiming others by his speeding, even the most gloomy philosopher has no just cause for complaint. Machinery and Speed. "The menace of speed, however, lies in the fact that speed has become a fetish, an obsession, and is worshipped in and for itself. New machines bring with them new problems. Those imbued with the speed obsession immediately conclude that the way to solve such problems is to improve the machine. The fallacy is so deep-rooted that the best minds of the world are paying more attention to these machines than to the men who haiidle them and the millions of men thrown out of employment owing to them. Scientific invention and mechanical advancement have far outstripped economic, social and religious development. Scientific invention, like a fiery steed, has broken free from the team of horses that are drawing the chariot of human progress. The problem is to keep all the horses yoked together to the one chariot. "The -solution of the unemployment problem is not only a matter for mechanics, engineers and scientists, but filso for economists, financiers, statesmen 'and teachers. Man power is more important than physical energy. Character counts as much as a country's resources. The age needs Christianising. Without Christianity it will commit suicide. The youth of to-day have been specially trained .to suit the needs of the age. But when they step out into this 'world they are told that there are no jobs for them; that they constitute a glut on the market and thai machines of flesh and blood have no chance against machines of iron and steel. These machines can do lie maximum of work in the minimum of time, at the minimum of economic cost, with the minimum of humafi interference. The unemployed youth asks: 'Are these machines my friends or my deadly enemies V And the answer is fairly obvious. Reclaiming Human Wastage. "Just, consider the human wastage, the depreciation of moral, the slump in human character that a huge army of unemployed involves,. If the brains of the world were concentrated on this aspect of the case, if this appalling loss and wastage were to fire their imagination, to inflame their conscience, men would start at the Tight end of the stick. They would staTt as He started Who came 'to seek and to save that which was lost.' We heed, the mind of Christ ,to save our youth from being maimed and mangled by our machines."

(By S.)

There must have been something extraordinary about Christ to convince such men as Nathanael, who had come to Him not only sceptical about Sim, but prejudiced against Him, that He was a Divine being. What was there extraordinary about Him thai overcame Nathanael's prejudice and changed him from a convinced, doubter into a conduced believer. There are two things. There was first a strange, unique air of greatness. Rosette has - a painting of JTim sitting in Simon's house, and directing such a mesmeric look at Mary Magdalene as she passes along the street ■ with her companion, that she leaves ithem, and, rushing in at the open door, prostrates herself before Him. That is fancy, but here is fact. John the Baptist, the proud,, stern, unbending man, whose resistless -eloquence had brought !his countrymen to his feet, saw Him approaching a day or two before this, and, at once his pride gave; place to . humility, and his sternness to homage, and lie. exclaimed, "He is mightier than I.' And the same unique air of greatness impressed Nathanael in the same way. And there are indications in the Gospels .that it similarly impressed everyone who was not unreasoningly prejudiced against Him. They were, of course, blind to His greatness, for that kind of prejudice puts dust in the eyes that nothing will take out. This air of greatness was always about Jesus, and sometimes it was more noticeable than, at other times, as, for example, in the Garden, when the eoldiers were too awed to lay hands on Him, and it was what the apostle John had in his mind when he wrote, "We beheld His glory," and that Peter had in his mind when he wrote, "We were eye witnesses of His majesty." Nathanael was one of the "We,"

Then there was the amazing discovery, for this of itself would never have made a Christian of him, that this Man knew about him what only; himself and his Maker knew, that, somehow, He had compassed his path, and knew his downBitting, and was acquainted with his very thojghts. It .was this discovery, this resistless conviction, that drew from hm, as he met Jesus' calm gaze, the exclamation —"Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God." '

Nathanael, then, is a witness, and in his gospel, intended for sceptics and doubters, was considered by John as a witness, and as a valuable witness to Jesus' right to be considered God manifest in flesh. Though he know very little of Him, though he. ha,d never heard Him preach, or seen Him. perform a miracle, though he knew nothing of His Divine Sonship , "in its unique and loftiest sense" though he' knew nothing of the relation" in which He stood to the world —that it was called into existence that He might reign over it, arid that He so loved it that He had. come to make atonement for its sins—though he knew none "of these things, though he had never seen Jesus, or, 'perhaps heard of

Him before this —Nathanael is a witness to His deity, for he had reasons, and they were adequate reasons, for his faith, which, taken along with the reasons of John's other witnesses, and the reasons of our own contemporaries, who have a sincere and unshakable conviction that Jesus is their Lord, ought to help to convince those of us who are in doubt about him, that He • was what Nathanael called Him, the Son of God, the King of Israel.