TRAGEDY OF DEMAS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 236, 5 October 1935, Page 2 (Supplement)

TRAGEDY OF DEMAS.

ABANDONED HIS SAVIOUR. - (By S.) There are men we come upon in the Bible, as there are men we come upon in history in general, of whom we think with admiration. There are others of whom we think with scorn. Demas belongs to the latter category. Shakespeare makes Marc Anthony say in his oration on Caesar that the evil men do lives after them, and that the good they do is often buried with them. The saying comes to our mind when we think of Demas. He is not immortalised by whatever good he did; he is remembered as an apostate who allowed his selfish instincts to become too strong for him. He was not base like Ahithophel. Ahithophel was a bosom friend of David, and one of his leading counsellors, yet he abetted Absalom in his rebellion against him, and became his evil genius, and had Absalom taken his advice, David would have lost his crown and his life. Still less was he base like Judas. Judas was a man of marked ability, an enthusiast, and a close friend of the Saviour, but he conspired against Him with His enemies, took their bloodmoney, and brought Him to the cross. And both men died tragically by their own hand, yet somehow we do not feel pity for them. Demas was not as bad as Ahithophel or Judas, but we despise him. He was a prominent member of the early Church, he knew the struggle it had to make headway, and he was privileged to be one of the little circle, including such men as Luke and Mark and Epaphras, who formed Paul’s companions, yet, tempted by ease and comfort, he broke away from it, and left Paul and his fellow workers in the lurch. And that is how we think of him, and how he will be thought of for all time. And it is inevitable. We say of the dead who have shown themselves unworthy of our respect, “Let us say nothing about them unless what is good.” But whether we speak ill of them or not we cannot blot them out of our memory. And, if they are given a place on the page of history, their unworthiness is on record for all time. That is how it is with Demas. We do not remember him as an erstwhile Christian of eminence, as a companion of the greatest and best man of his day. We remember him as a man in whom the Christian faith had no permanent foundation, and who was lacking in a purpose of high sincerity. There was a crisis in tile history of the Church, and it was that crisis that revealed him. It showed the kind. of man Paul was, and it showed the kind of man he was. Paul could say in the near prospect of a violent death: “I have kept the faith.” He lost it, abandoned his Church and his Saviour. Whether his apostasy was parmanent or temporary we are not told, but tradition leans to the darker view.

NOTES IN PASSING.

A text: “Have faith in God.”—Jesus.

No fewer than 31,500 books and 47,000 booklets were published by the “New Church” last year.

There are about 80 British and American missionaries at the moment in Abyssinia. The majority of them are connected with the Sudan Interior Mission.

Lord Nuffield, who made such a generous donation some time ago for behoof of crippled children in New Zealand, has given £lO,OOO to be used for the benefit of the blind at Home.

Wise sayings: “Without contentment there is no wealth.” “Thought beforehand is better than regret afterward.” “We are not here to give little answers to great questions.” “He who is fully conscious of his own goodness has very little of it.” “There are souls in the world who have the gift of finding joy everywhere, and of leaving it behind them when they go. Their influence is an inevitable gladdening of the heart. . . . These bright hearts have a great work to do for God.” —Faber.

An English military officer remarked some time ago that there were only three reasons why men went to Central Africa —because they were hard up, because they wanted adventure, or because their own country was too hot to hold them. A correspondent residing in the Belgian Congo, reading this, wrote to the paper in which he came upon it: “I have no means of ascertaining what experience the major has had of Central Africa, but he seems completely to have overlooked another class of men and women —who are to be found there (missionaries and medical missionaries). They have the honour to follow in the footsteps of the one who helped to make it possible for all those whom the major has classified to go through Central Africa at all, namely David Livingstone.”

In the course of an article in the “Baptist Quarterly,” a Baptist minister remarks that when a man has been a long time in the ministry there are many things he regrets. Speaking for himself, he regretted most the stern and harsh judgments he passed on others in his earlier years. “Perhaps,” he says, “youth is always apt to be hard in its condemnations. ... As one grows older one grows more merciful, and, realising far more of the tragedy of sin and folly, and especially of folly, one has learnt much of the mysterious depths and strange and frequent beauty of human souls. In the beginning one sometimes wondered why God loved the world. In the end it seems the most natural thing for Him to do, He being Himself and the world what it is. The world of men is worth loving and worth redeeming. Among the 12,000 guests of the King and Queen, representing every section of society and every corner of the' Empire, at the garden party at Buck-1 ingham Palace some weeks ago were , General Evangeline Booth and Commis-| sioner David Lamb. The General describes herself as having been deeply, impressed by the affection which was displayed towards the Royal hosts. “I- quickly gathered,” she says, "some good reasons for such affection when I discovered His Majesty’s personal interest in the affairs of his people as he inquired of me concerning the welfare of the Army and spoke of my recent overseas campaigns. The Queen also graciously spoke to me concerning the work we' in the Armv are doing.” The General also had lengthy I conversations with others who were pre- > sent, including the Duke and Duchess I * of York. |