RELIGIOUS WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 181, 2 August 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

RELIGIOUS WORLD.

PRESENT-DAY OUTLOOK. ARE WE MEN OF PRAYER ? TEST OF HUMAN HAPPINESS. "Are We Men of Prayer?" was the subject of a sermon recently delivered in the Baptist Tabernacle by the Rev. Joseph W. Kemp. The following passage is taken from the sermon: — "Nothing is more wonderful than the power of prayer, unless, perhaps, the little use we make of it. Prayer is the key which God has placed in the hands of His people which will unlock His treasuries and defeat their foes. The Arabian storv speaks of the wonderful lamp which the Chinese Aladdin found and which, when it was rubbed, brought him almost everything he desired. _ In exaggerated fashion, and true to Oriental temper, the lamp became a means by which Aladdin was fed when he was hungry, enriched when he was poor; by °its aid he overcame his enemies, biiilt his golden palaces studded with gems, married the princess, retrieved disaster, and lived in glory and honour. Prayer is our Aladdin's lamp. By prayer we can have anything if we fulfil the conditions. .

"It is a sad fact that, while Christians confess that they ought to be creatures of prayer, they are largely put to shame by those who are infinitely below them in privilege and opportunity. The Mohammedan, with his fatalist creed, is an example to 1 the believer in Christ. No matter where he is, or in what company, at the time of prayer he falls down on his prayer mat and goes through his formal devotions. _ In .1 Kings xviii. we see how the priests of Baal called upon their god, though he was an idol, and incapable of answering them. Turning from the field of barbaric ignorance to that of inspiration, we find one subject which pervades every page of the Bible, and that is the privilege, and power of prayer, and yet who can say he has availed himself of this privilege or known this power as he ought or might? The great controversy God has with His people is that 'no man stirreth up himself to call upon God.' Feebly do we speak to Him, and pray without any measure of intensity. He has touched,' says Whyte, 'the top of human happiness who has learnt to pray, and he has touched the bottom of human misery who knows not how to pray.' Prayer is the most potent agency in the hands of the Church. A recital of the deliverances effected, the victories gained, and the reformation wrought by prayer would be nothing less than a record of the Church's triumphs down the ages and an outline of the experiences of every believer. "The feeblest saint, with hands of helpless weakness, can grasp the hand of the living God and become, while he clings. . strong to do exploits. D. L. Moody, to illustrate the power of prayer, once told of a little cripple girl he knew. She lay in a sick bed from which she never rose, and her distress was great because she was unable actively to labour for the lost. She was visited by her minister, who, on learning of her complaint, told her of a ministry which she could exercise from her sickbed—she could pray. He advised her to write down the names of those she desired to be saved, and then left her, thinking no more of what had been suggested. A work of grace broke out in the district, and the churches were crowded nightly. The child heard of the revival, and earnestly inquired for the names of the converts. A few weeks later she died, and among a roll of papers found under her pillow was one bearing the names of 56 persons, every one of whom had been brought to Christ during the revival. With each name "was a little cross, by which this poor, crippled saint had checked off the names of the converts as they had been reported to her.

"The heavens assuredly open to fervent intercessions. Strongholds of sin fall, and the powers of darkness give way before the weapons that are forged in the closet and launched forth on the breath of prayer. Why do we pray so seldom? What is the hindrance? Do we lack desire, or, are we cherishing that which prevents our approach to God? Why not spend a day now and then with God? It is surely possible amid the ceaseless round of life's duties. Why not slacken off then, occasionally, for converse with God? No man" was ever the worse for 'coming away from men and burying his broken heart in the Father's bosom.'"

SAINTS. (By S.) One of the most misunderstood and misused words in the English language is the word "Saint." The average person uses it as if it connoted a person of distinguished holiness. It does not connote a person of distinguished holiness. Saints are not rare like the master spirits we call geniuses. There are many saints to be met with, though the world may never have heard of them. What is a saint? Not necessarily a person whose whole mind is bent towards holiness. And it is well, for it is possible to be righteous overmuch, and there is no more unsaintly person to be met with than the person who is righteous overmuch, and there is no person with whom it is more difficult to get on. Abraham and Peter were saints, but neither of them was, or imagined he was, a paragon of holiness. Each had his flaws and defects, each had his faults and failings, and each was humble enough and sensible enough to know it, and honest enough to admit it. We call them saints because they had a very real sense of God, and a'very real regard for God, which they showed by their feelings and by their actions.

One of the most characteristic qualities of a saint is the thankful sense of obligation we call gratitude. Whatever other people may be able to lay to their charge, they are not able to record against them a want of sensitiveness to tho "still small voice" of gratitude. You never find a 6aintly man or woman rewarding the kindness of others with coldness, or compassing their goodness with indifference. Like the flowers that perfume the air with their breath, the pleasant odour of a heart that cherishes a thankful recollection of kindness is ever about them. Nor is their gratitude a thing of the heart only; whether it is expected of them or not, they pay what they owe with kindly speech and kindly deeds, like the harp of Aeolus, which was so sensitive to the wind that it responded with music to its faintest whisper. .' ' We have the classical example ot the saint pondering the kindness and love of his Maker in the 103 rd Psalm. There we see David making it one of the guiding principles of his life to daily call to mind the goodness and mercy that

compassed him like the air he breathed and to praise and thank Him for it. And the gratitude of the saint is not confined to earth. Jesus teaches us that it will not cease to spring from his soul in the fuller life of Heaven, that men and women cherish and acknowledge a sense of obligation there as well as here; whilst the Bible is full of indications that they will never cease to cherish and to acknowledge their sense of obligation to the God they adore. If music has a larger place in Heaven than it has on earth one of the reasons of it is that its exalted inhabitants never forget God's goodness to them.

MYSTERY AND SCIENCE. Old Testament literature affords little indication that those whose religion it represents had much assurance of a future life, or of fresh opportunities beyond the grave. And there are those among us who have reached a like conclusion along the pathway of science. They imagine that science has done away with the mystery both of the present and of the future life. In fact, the belief is astonishingly widespread that science has done away with all mystery. That is a belief held by those whose acquaintance with the latest results and speculations of science is superficial and shallow. The truth is that science, so far from abolishing mystery, has deepened it and intensified our sense of it. Perhaps the most daring and astounding recent speculations of astronomical science have been made by an author who, the other day, having shifted back the date of creation by about 200 millions of millions of years, began to ask—"And what before that?" And we find him falling back on such an hypothesis (using his own words) as that of "the finger of God agitating the ether"; or, on the alternative conception (again using hie own words) of "the universe as a thought in the mind of its Creator, thereby reducing all discussion of material creation to futility." (Jeans: "The Universe Around Us," page 328.) If that be the last word of Sidereal Science, it is certainly not the death sentence of mystery.—From a sermon preached a short time ago in St. Columba's Presbyterian Church, London, by Dr. Archibald Fleming.

CURRENT NOTES. There are 12 Embassies and 21 Legations in Vatican City, Rome. Great Britain is among the States represented.

The "Catholic Times," London, reports that there are in the mission fields in Africa over 2£ million Catholics, with close on 2000 churches and chapels, over 2700 priests, of whom 159 are natives, and 65 seminaries with 1545 native students.

To encourage large families, the Dominicans in Holland have recognised the services which parents of large families render to the State by securing that church dues in Holland will be graded according to the number of children in a family.

The Auckland Diocesan Sunday School Festival will be held in the Town Hall on the 26th and 27th of next month. A pageant of early English Church history will be presented by the various Sunday Schools. Archdeacon McMurray will preside.

The Rev. D. D. Scott spoke at the Ministers' Association meeting on Monday on what the Presbyterian Church could contribute to a United Protestant Church. The question of a United Protestant Church is being widely discussed to-day. According to a Moscow newspaper the membership of the Russian* Anti-God Society numbers over 2J million members. By means of a five-years' scheme to eradicate Christianity, it is expected that the membership will increase throughout the Soviet Republic to 17 millions. Dr. Lucon, the Cardinal Archbishop oi Rheims, died on May 28, at the advanced age of 87. During the bombardment of Rheims the Cardinal refused to become a refugee and though the cathedral, one of the most beautiful and historic in France, was ruined by shell fire, he continued to carry on his episcopal ministrations in a cellar. The restoration of the cathedral took place a few months before his death. A London reviewer of the recently published "More Cracks with We Twa," by the Marquess and Marchioness of Aberdeen, remarks that "from beginning to end there is not a story or a sentence with bitterness or sting or a suspicion of uncharity in it; just the genial, human and benevolent talk of two gifted but single-minded and large-hearted gentlefolk, always resolved to see only the best in all whom they meet."' The Marquess and Marchioness have been noted all their life for the active part they have taken in religious and philanthropic work, and the Marquess has been for long a prominent elder in the Church of Scotland. The death has occurred at the great age of 96 of Dr. George Morrison Browne, formerly Bishop of Stepney, London, and first Bishop of Bristol. Dr. Browne was born in York, in a house in which Guy Fawkes used to live. He was educated at St. Peter's school, York, and at St. Catherine's College, Cambridge, and filled a number of offices in connection with his alma mater. He was a Fellow, a lecturer and a chaplain in connection with St. Catherine's, a Professor of Archaeology, and a member of the Senatus. He was appointed Bishop of Stepney 35 years ago when he was 61, and, two years later, was made Bishop of Bristol, which position he held till 1914, when he had reached his 81st birthday. Dr. Browne was a prolific writer.

The "War Cry," the official organ of the Salvation Army, is issued in 55 countries and in 30 languages. It has an I enormous circulation —over a quarter of a million in Great Britain alone. Salvation Army periodicals throughout the world total two million copies per issue. The Army is established in 82 countries and colonies, and its message is spoken in 72 languages. There are 25,427 officers and cadets in its service, and 9647 other j fully-employed workers without .rank. There are 110,025 officers (unpaid officials of branches or corps), and 44,000 bandsmen, who give their services entirely without remuneration. The number of social institutions maintained by the Army is 1526. Its hostels, shelters, and food depots for men and women number 36,143. Last year work of a permanent or temporary kind was found for 303,340 people at its homes, workshops and wood yards, while its 137 labour bureaux found situations for 244,949 men. It has 90 maternity homes, and 22,199 expectant mothers were received into these homes during 1929, whilst 6267 women and girls were cared for in its rescue homes. It operates 168 slum posts, 104 children's homes, 23 creches, six inebriates' homes, many hospitals, and five leper colonies, four of them being in the Dutch East Indies and one in India, in addition to doing important prison gate work.