RELIGIOUS WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 38, 14 February 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

RELIGIOUS WORLD.

[ PRESENT-DAY OUTLOOK.

| HOW TO KNOW GOD.

! THEME IN CHRIST'S MINISTRY.

Tip. following are notes of a sermon 6n what the preacher called "The Supreme Question/' made impressive by its smiplicity and air of sincerity, and delivered in the Methodist Church, Mount Albert. The Rev. Angus MacBean, the minister of the church, was the preacher. He said:— "Wo live in an age that is full of questions and problems; perhaps it is true that 'we suffer from nothing so Much as problemitis.' It would be well if we refused to think about a Tot of these, and fastened our attention more on the supreme question of all, and I think it is—How can we be sure of JGod? That was the central theme in Christ's ministry. And whatever else & minister may find time and have talent to do, his main business is to £now God and to make Him known. "Now, spiritual facts must be spiritually perceived. That is, as Dr. Maltby points out, there are moral conditions for spiritual vision. And he goes on to show that only a little honest attention is needed to see that this is true. , For the appreciation of beauty something more spiritual is Heeded than keenness of. sight. A hawk may see a landscape better than I can. But it cannot see what I see. And I can see a sunset; but I cannot )see what Turner saw, although jTurner can help me to see better. And Et is the same with moral excellence. Essential Conditions. "There are moral conditions for Spiritual vision. We can see that by ■ jsetting two well-known passages ofj Scripture side by side: 'The foolhath Kaid in his heart, there is no God'; and f Blessed are the pure in heart, for. they shall see God.' What a contrast is ■ there! Dr. David Smith shows that i jihe Psalmist used a very interesting jword. The Hebrew ,word translated fool comes from the same word as the word 'wither.' 'His leaf also shall hot wither.' The fool then in Psalm xiv. is one who is withered, and the rest of the psalm shows how withered he was, till ihe came at last to, say in his heart, 'There is no God!' But Jesus 6aid, '.Blessed are .the pure in heart, for they ehall see God,' which means, at least, that the life people live is reflected in their opinions and belie is concerning God. This does not mean that wherever there is doubt there must be evil living. The Bible has sympathy with the.man in real doubt, otherwise the 73rd Psalm, and the Book of Job, would never have been written. But it does "mean that concerning these high spiritual themes the real experts are, the saints, and the supreme and incomparable authority is Jesus. Men everywhere acclaim Him as. the world's greatest Teacher, and this was the subject upon which He specialised. God—God near, . loving, gracious, helpful. Example of Brother Lawrence. , "It is not enough to know what He |said, and to believe His testimony. We must share His knowledge. As He knew the Father, so, too, we must come to know Him. This is the all-important jthing. We might believe every single statement which an infallible Church or an inerrant book proclaims, and yet we might not know God. And Jesus said, lp "Thi3 is life eternal, that they- might know Thee.' And so I believe that the greatest thing for us all to do. is to seek to know God, and our knowledge may be increased, and our experience enriched, by cultivating God's presence. Brother Lawrence's method was a good one. As he went about his humble iduties in the monastery kitchen, he reminded himself continually, .' God is here! I an/ His child! Jesus is with me!' until the Divine presence became more real to him than anything else in his life. "Through prayer, and earnest, honest ptudy of God's Word, and constant watchfulness against evil in our life, Sn this way we too can know Him and ifind a fuller and richer life: that is, if ,we add to it one thing, and that is, [willing service, prompted by love."

GOD AND SUFFERING.

(By S.)

Our hearts ha,ve been deeply stirred jby the appalling disaster of last week, and even yet, we feel dazed and ' stunned; it was so unexpected, so sickening and unnerving, and so humbling and awesome. Let us home that the science of seismology, which is comparatively recent, for it is little more ihaxL half a century since men began to make an exact study of earthquake phenomena, will make it possible for earthquakes to be predicted in time to iobviate loss of life, and that, as was said in the "Star" the other day, building methods will yet be followed that will lessen the possibility of such havoc being wrought as has ■ laid Napier and Hastings in ruins. In thinking of such a disaster in relation to God there is one thing we" should keep in mind/and that is that we are on sacred ground, and should approach the subject humbly and reverently. And we would. do well to rejtnember that one of the most precious truths brought out in connection with our Lord is that in the days of His flesh He sorrowed at the havoc and misery wrought by death, and sympathised with mourners. Neither He nor any of. the writers of Scripture ever Eaid anything to help us to understand ,why things are so constituted that the disasters we class as acts of God, and that excite our wonder and cause us to fcnourn, should be possible. There is a passage, however, in Scripture which says that God Himself suffered in the affliction the Jewish people underwent in tie course of their iiistory, and there is no devout Christian mind but must believe and find some light in the mind and some comfort to the heart in the thought that, / though we may never be able in this life to fathom the mystery of suffering, iP 0 Aimighty.thought suffering not only inevitable, but so necessary that He did not make a world in which it would be KwiTl' in Chrisfc Himself Bhared it, and now as ever feels something of the burdeii of human woe. We idare not, bo too anthropomorphic'in our conception of God, but, though such a disaster as tliat which occurred at Hawke's Bay, confronts us in the last resort with a mystery that no human mind can explore, it would be bias-1 phemy to suppose that the worthy attributes which we possess are not true of Him, too, and that He is not moved by the sufferings that move us. And of this, too, „we may be sure, that it is part of His glory that He keeps within the shadow, and does not allow Himself to interfere with natural laws, 1 an interference that would almost certainly affect our imagination and our responsibilities more than we are apt to aupJose.

A BROADCAST SERVICE.

The following is an appreciation of a recent broadcast religious service. The writer is an Auckland minister who spent his annual holiday last month on Waiheke. He writes:— "Spending my vacation on Waiheke Island, I walked to Surf dale on a recent Sunday evening to listen to a religious broadcast service from Auckland. It is a great thing to be the possessor of- a good radio set, and Mr. and Mrs." Atkinson can boast of a very fine instrument. I was invited into their snug little home, and there listeed to a service relayed from Beresford Street Congregational Church. I never enjoyed anything better in all my radio experience. The minister was at his best. His sermon on "He Careth For You," was a simple and, at the same time, scholarly presentation of a great truth. The strains of the organ came over the air with good effect, and the accompaniments to the hymns, anthems and solos were sympathetically played. "If every church service broadcast from our Auckland down-town churches is of the same high order as the one described, the Auckland churches are to be congratulated. In giving this testimony, may I say that if people on the islands and in the backblocks, who own radio sets, were to invite their neighbours to listen-in to a Sunday evening or Sunday morning radio service, they would be doing an incalculable good, which would go far towards making our New Zealand people a hapipier and more contented body of citizens."

LINEN FOR COMMUNION.

It is customary in many Presbyterian churches at Home and. throughout the world to place white linen cloths in front of each pew and on the Communion table at the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, i The custom dates from the Eeformation, and arose out of the practice in pre-Keformation times of covering the altar in time of mass with a linen cloth. In Scotland unleavened bread was for many years used in the Sacrament, and, in the form of shortbread, is still in use in some parish churches in Galloway, in the south-west. In the town of Dumfries, where the poet Burns is buried, up to 1865 the br,ead was in round pieces, which were stamped with a cross on the top. Until quite recently, in some churches in the North of Scotland, a basin of water and a towel were laid on the- end of the Communion table, so that the minister might wash his hands before taking the bread. The first observance of the Lord's Supper was in the evening, but the Reformers followed the Roman Catholic custom of having the Communion in the morning, sometimes as early as 3 o'clock a.m., and they refused to allow anyone to, be served after noon. Fasting Communion was also the rule until well into the seventeenth century. The "tokens" that used to be in use in Scotland at the Communion (the writer well remembers them) are* supposed by most people to have been a peculiarly Presbyterian feature. That, however, is a mistake; they were a Roman Catholic survival. Banns in marriage, godparents in baptism, the holding of the child by the parent at its christening, are all usages which date from preReformation days; so is the custom especially in the Presbyterian Church, of the people taking no share in any part of the service other than in joining in praise. In the early Church it was quite different; the services on Sundays were "many voiced," the people responding and, along with the minister, taking part in the prayers and readings. .

CURRENT NOTES.

Outside a town in Illinois, tT.&AJj is the sign—"Population, 1000. Friendly People." "We are supposed to know," says a London minister, writing to his "Church Magazine," "all that is transpiring in the homes of members and adherents. 'My wfe, or hoy, or husband,' eays one, j ' has been ill, and neither the minister nor any pther church worker has ever come to ask for him (or her).' One of our gifts is supposed to be omniscience. The doctor when needed is sent for, "but the minister—just ought to have known! . An odd thing about this type of complaint is that the coinplainer is often a rare church attender at any time."

The present Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Dr. Bogle, is a former Free Church and, later, United Free Church minister. It will not be till May that the next General Assembly will meet, and that it will confirm the selection, yet it is some weeks since the Nomination Committee nominated as his successor, Dr. J. A. Graham, a well-known and distinguished missionary of the former Church of Scotland. Dr. Graham has been for more than forty years a missionary in Kalimpong, India. He is best known as the founder of children's Ijomes there on lines similar to those of Barnardo's. Homes in London, and the Quajrriers' Homes near Glasgow. Both 6n personal grounds and in view of the prominence that is being given to Indian affairs at the moment, the choice of Dr. Graham is a happy one.

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, which was to have been held in Wellingtonearly in March, has, in view of the disaster in Hawke's Bay, and its prominence in the public mind, and in public effort, been indefinitely postponed. It will be necessary for the Assembly to meet formally as arranged, but a small quorum from three neighbouring .Presbyteries is all that is needful to dispose of preliminary matters and to ratify the postponement. The Methodist Conference this year takes place in Dunedin, and opens on Thursday of next week. Owing to the fact that appointments have to be made and business of an imperative nature transacted it cannot be postponed.

Abraham had his home in Ur of the Chaldees some 1500 years B.C. Recent explorations in Mesopotamia show that Ur was a great and busy centre of civilisation 2000 years before that. It appears, indeed, that in his day the city and its culture had long -passed their zenith; the river-bed of the Euphrates had found another channel, the canals had dried up, and the decaying and declining city of Ur, which, 2000 years before, had been a centre of wealth , and commerce, and a focus of religion, had been left more or less marooned in e i j. . Remarking on the wonderl Eul. discoveries in the surrounding cemeteries of articles. of gold, inlaid pictures m shell and lapis lazuli, and other precious and wonderful things, a writer says: "A dagger sheath has been found of such exquisite workmanship in gold as could hardly be produced to-day. In art and civilisation it looks as if these ancients of Ur had little that we could teach them; it looks as if we would have had much to learn from them." And they lived more than 5000 years ago!.