RELIGIOUS WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 217, 13 September 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

RELIGIOUS WORLD.

PRESENT-DAY OUTLOOK.

OUR SECURITY,

WE SHALL KNOW HEREAFTER,

The following is taken from a sermon preached recently by the Rev." A. McDonald Aspland in Knox Church, Parnell, on Christ's words to Peter, "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know'hereafter": —

"Tho scientist of to-day is an intellectual giant compared with his predecessors of, say, 100 years ago, and yet how. limited is his grasp. God is still saying to the most advanced in the scientific world, 'What I do thou knowcst not now. . In every department of knowledge there are worlds of truth ungrasped. because they are beyond our finito in'uids, and the higher one's mind rises, the greater is the field untouched. The more powerful the telescope, the greater the number of worlds revealed. The more sensitive the plat© placed in the camera, the greater the fields of mystery recorded on its surface. In like manner, tho greater the scholar, the more conscious ho is of his own ignorance. It is only the man -with a small mind and a limited outlook who imagines he is a walking encyclopaedia. "This is equally true of the greatest saint. Advance in spiritual life makes him conscious of the gulf between his life and the perfect standard set by Christ. It was this that led Paul to exclaim, 'I am less than the least, yea, I am the chief of sinners.' If our knowledge is limited in the world of science, how equally limited it is in the world of Providence. Psalmist Went Astray. "Life is full of illustrations of the fact expressed in our text. Take a seed and imagine it holding a conversation with the gardener: 'Dost thou cast me into the ground to destroy my life? , and the gardener replies: 'What I do thou knowcst not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. , As a result of his action, latent forces develop and the end more than justifies it. The caterpillar passes into its chrysalis stage and remains dormant for months, but out of the old life comes the new, and the life onco content to grovel on the earth, now rises on wings into more glorious experiences. AVell might it have qwtioned the wisdom of its chrysalis period, but the new life ends all adverse criticism. So in God's providential dealings with. us. The psalmist had much that he could not understand.

"How beautifully too this is illustrated in the life of Joseph. We can imagine him saying: 'Why, though innocent, am I cast into this dungeon ?' Once more tho end justified the beginning. What was mysterious was later made plain to him and his brethren. The fact we need to remember is that all that God does, or. permits to be done, is clear to Him, though mysterious to us. Look at his dealings with Saul, stricken down on. his way to Damascus. Well might ho have asked: 'What does this mean? Everything is wrapped in mystery. . But Jesus said to Mm: 1 have appeared unto thee for this purpose to make thee a minister and a -witness of those things thou hast seen, and of those things in ■vvhich I will appear nnto thee. . He is driven, by. the spirit into Arabia, where he remains two or three years. 'Why this solitude?' he might have questioned, but faith, asked no question, but threw itself into God's purposes and exclaimed for his own and others' cqmfort: 'AH things -work together for good, to them who trust God. , God Will Reveal. "Look at the two pronouns, and that for which they stand—l, Thou—the one standing for the Creator, the other for the created. The one human, the other Divine—the Finite and the Infinite. It is not natural that the lesser should be able to understand the Greater, until the processes of development have accomplished their work. The boy cannot grasp the mathematical problem, clear to the mind of his professor; time and development will raise the one to the standard of the other; in the meantime much must of necessity remain mysterious to him. The fact that we know not should strengthen rather than weaken our faith in God who knows. Our security rests in the fact that 'He knoweth the -way that we take. , When embarking on a liner for some distant port, it is not essential to our happiness or safety that -we should have a knowledge of the internal workings in the engine; room, or of the seas through which the vessel is to plough her way. The captain and chief engineer know these things' and our security rests on this fact. He knows when to go full epeed, when to slow down and when to drop the anchor. Job had much that he could not understand, but he exclaimed: 'Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. , •

"'Thou shalt know hereafter. . What a glorious promise. God will reveal things to us, as we are able to grasp His Divine purposes concerning us, and as we grow in grace, our confidence in God "will also grow. Knowledge gained at 50, as the result of experience, ■ explains much that was mysterious to us at 20. In like manner, when fuller knowledge is ours, life's mysteries will be made plain. Christ's wounds had a deeper significance than many in His day thought, and the fullest significance is not yet ours. He had an eternal purpose in all He said aria did. Nothing was said or done without thought, but as the result of thought. Let us fashion our lifes according to the trust we have received, never live on < less than the highest platform. Let us live according to the light we have and fuller light will assuredly bo granted. ,,

ADVANTAGE OP DISCIPLESHIP

(By S.) When Christ accepted the adoring confession of Nathanael, "Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God. Thou art the King of Israel," he made two things clear to him. One was that he was on]y a beginner in tho study of Christian principles—that is to say, that his creed', although Hβ accepted it, was crude and imperfect. The other was that by-and-t>y he would see "greater things" than he saw at the moment. All that ho saw at the moment was that He, Chriet, was euperhunian, that He knew the eecrets of men's hearts. By-and-by he would eec deep into the world of spiritual realities. Awl, what He eaid . Kathanael He says to all who enter Tipon the study of X/ife under Him. They see but little ae yet, therefore, they believe out little. But they will, as time advances, see greater and ever greater things, and their faith will be proportionately enlarged', and that ekould

inspire them with hope and with enthusiasm. And, did not Natbanael find Hie promise come true? AnH, have not all experienced Christians found His promise come true? How vastly the horizon of Nathanael's knowledge was extended during his three years with Christ, and, later, between the Resurrection and the end of Pentecost. And how vastly older Christian people have advanced in the knowledge of the world, of eternity and of God and Christ. Putting their hand, as it were, in His, they have- gone forward, and heaven has opened to them and dieclosed to them revelation after revelation, ministry after ministry, and blessing after blessing. Alas for those to whom Christ is not Master. The world of science may be opened to them, and the world of literature, yet how limited is their outlook and their insight and their experience if the world of spiritual realities is shut to them. Nathanael was a good man, and, obviously a thinker and a student, but suppose he had not come to Christ, suppose he had not taken Him for his Lord and Master, what an enormous lot he would have missed, and, to that extent, have been the poorer and the more barren in mind and heart. The balance is altogether on the side of the man who is an earnest disciple of Him Who has the keys of death and of the unseen world. He has an advantage, intellectually, spiritually, and morally that he will have all through eternity. FAITH AND MORAIS.

The following is an interesting and suggestive extract from a sermon preached a short time ago by the Rev. Dr. Fleming, in St. Columba Church, London. Its appositeness and literary finish are features of Dr. Fleming's preaching: — "God is a God of reason, and He gives ,us and demands of us a reasoned plan of faith and morals. All these we must learn and teach, and the Church must teach. But beyond and behind the teaching must be the personality of the teacher. And the terrible peril to which we are exposed is this —that behind our religious observances there may be no consciousness of the compelling personality of Christ. In other words, we must not only learn His law, but see through His eyes and adopt His standpoint. The apostle put it thus: He said thab we. . . must aio longer live, but Christ must live in us. That it is, and that only, which makes a man a disciple, and an institution Christian. When we grasp that fact, we begin to see how comparatively unimportant are the barriers of denominational distinction. For Christ had not one standpoint, but many standpoints. And different branches of His Church may have different standpoints also, yet each of them a standpoint of Christ. I can think of "two men just now —one of them a distinguished and earnest low church prelate of the Church of England: another, his son, as earnest a votary of the Church of Rome. I daresay that, as there is astigmatism in most eyes, so there may be an obliquity of vision in the Christian outlook of both of these sincerely Christian men. They will, no doubt, need rectifying lenses in the great future, when the spiritual spectrum will be harmonised, and distortions done away. But that each is a disciple, none that knows them doubts; nor, I am sure, do they doubt it of one another. One may be of Paul, and another of Apollbs; yet both may be of Christ." CURRENT NOTES. The Rev. A. W. Bean, who ha-s been minister of the Epsom Baptist Church for the past two and a half years, has resigned, and is returning to Melbourne at tho end of this month. A new Roman Catholic cathedral is to be erected on a large scale in Dublin. A site has been purchased in Merrion Square from the Earl of' Pembroke, who owns the land, at a cost of £10,000. One hundred and seventy of the bishops who attended the Lambeth Conference travelled to Liverpool to take part in the recent celebration of the jubilee of the diocese. Several archbishops were among those present, including Archbishop Averill..

The Keswick Convention, in the heart of the English Lake District, was held in July. Many thousands of Christian people from all parts of Great Britain were present and from all parts of the •world—a number of them in picturesque native costume.

Five thousand trained singers, assisted by an orchestra numbering 100, gave a magnificent rendering recently of Handel's music at the triennial singing festival of the Carnarvonshire Welsh Congregationalists in the Pavilion, Carnarvon. The building, which seats 8000 people, "was crowded.

The spectacle of a rector flying over his own parish was witnessed at Pleaslay, near Mansfield, England, a few weeks ago. During a garden party in the rectory grounds, the Rev. J. Pyddoke suddenly appeared overhead in an aeroplane, and demonstrated his skill by looping the loop, stalling, diving and other evolutions.

The Rev. George Budd, the Moderator of the General Assembly, was the preacher on the occasion of its jubilee last Sunday, in Tuakau Presbyterian church. Among those..present was the Rev. J. Findlay, a former minister 42 years ago. At that time the parish was called Pukekohe, and extended from Waiau Pa to Miranda, and, where one Presbyterian minister sufficed then, there are now four ministers and two home missionaries.

The Rev. W. I. Carr Smith, who -died suddcnly'in Church House, Westminster, a few weeks ago, was rector of St. James , Church, Sydney, from 1896 to 1900. From 1910 till 1917 he was vicar in Grantham, Lincolnshire, England, which he left to become vicar of St. Peter's, Eastbourne, Sussex. Hβ remained in Eastbourne five years, and then, till his death, was vicar of Forty Hill, Enfield, near London. In 1916 he was made a prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral, and continued to act as such till ho died. He is still remembered in Sydney for his prominence as an AngloCatholic clergyman.

The Rev. Dr. Long, Bishop of Newcastle, N.S.W., died suddenly at the comparatively .early age of 54, when attending the Lain'beth Conference in London. Dr. Long was an Australian by birth and education, and a strong man physically and intellectually. He was a keen advocate for the removal of the legal nexus uniting the Anglican Church in Australia to the mother Church in England. In this- connection it is interesting to Temember that unlike her sister Church on the other side of the Tisman, the Anglican Church here in New Zealand is independent of the i mother Church.