LEAF FROM A NOTEBOOK.

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

LEAF FROM A NOTEBOOK.

Our Lord's feeding of the five thousand is one of the most remarkable of His miracles. How He did it we do not know. It is as much a mystery as the growth of a grain of corn into the dozen or two ears of corn we see nodding in the autumn suiishine. Both are, in a sense, miracles, and, Were it not that the latter is ail operation with which we are yearly familiar, we should wonder as it as much as we wonder at the feeding of that hungry crowd. ' It was an astonishing thing to do. But a great many things Christ did were astonishing. And He Himself was far more astonishing than any of them. The feature of the miracle is not the feeding of the five thousand, but the liberalness of the feeding. What interests one is not the fact that He miraculously satisfied the needs of these people, but that He gave them twelve baskets of bread and fish more than they were able to use. Why did He do this ? Chiefly for two reasons—because it was His way to treat men royally, and because He would v teacli them the duty of thrift. Take the last. He made the disciples collect every piece of food that remained over and store it in baskets and keep it for future use. And it was a wise and praiseworthy precaution. And that ia what thrift always is.

A PRAYER. From the Psalms: God is our King of old, working salvation in the midst of tlie earth. The day is Thine; the night also is Thine. Thou hast prepared the light and the sun. Tliou hast set all the borders of the earth. Thou hast made summer and winter. O forget not the life of Thy poor forever. Let the poor and needy praise Thy name. Amen.