"THE GARDEN."

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 147, 23 June 1934, Page 2 (Supplement)

"THE GARDEN."

CHURCH AS TRYSTING PLACE There is a fine article in the April issue of "Life and Work," the monthly record of the Church of Scotland, entitled "The Garden." The writer, whom I take to be W. P. Livingstone, its able and cultured editor, thinks of the Church as a garden, a sanctuary enclosed, a hallowed spot where we may often keep tryst with our living Lord. He goes on: —•

Great, indeed, is it to exchange the heat and din of the city, or the rough ways of common life, for the cool, refreshing fragrance of the garden in which Ho walks. Far more than we are, we ought to he the people of the garden. What is life for most of us if it is not a bustling and a noisy place; a thing throbbing with activity, burdened by business or a tumult of domestic anxiety? Even what we call our "religious" life is often so strained, so unproductive, and so dissatisfying. For all this there is the simplest of explanations—we neglect the garden. . . Quality is the primary desideratum in life. Things must not only be done., but well done. Easy is it to he bustling without being really busy. ' What we need for tho redeeming of life from poverty and ineffectiveness is keeping tryst in the Garden with the Master. Such fellowship will invest all we do with distinction and with abiding values. Beauty and vitality within the soul will depend upon the measure of time which the man gives to being alone with the Master in the Garden. Without such fellowship, life would be for many of us mechanical, artificial, almost unreaL It is said by the Evangelist that the disciples knew the Garden well, for the Master resorted thither often with them. That is a remark we might profitably ponder. We are forever fretting over our affairs, brooding over slights, lamenting failure, and. studying ourselves. Such soulless egotism robs us of repose. We keep company too much with ourselves and too little with the Master. Our life, if spent wholly on the highway of affairs, is weakened through its loss of the sweet seclusion of the Garden.

"Did not I see thee in the garden with Him?" When first spoken, that was a word of challenge, but it ought now to be for us a word of unspeakable privilege. From the fellowship we find in the Garden, we come so radiant, so fresh, so strong, that those who meet us take knowledge of ns that we have been with Jesus. The breath of the Garden in which he meets his Lord clings to a man even amid his busiest hours.