PULPIT MESSAGES

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 183, 1 May 1933, Page 10

PULPIT MESSAGES

Wellington Churches CHARACTER-BUILDING Teachings of St. Paul “Alost of us are engaged in some useful oceupaton. AA r e are makers or producers, exchangers or forwarders. By our activities we help to meet the world’s needs, and these we call our trades or industries,” said the Rev. Harry Johnson, preaching in the Terrace Congregational Church last evening. "There is another class of industries than those tabulated by the Board of Trade and by chambers of commerce,” he continued. “Our eyes and fingers are ■ not the only artificers. There are other workshops than the bench, the office, the store, or the factory. Within each of us there are inward industries of character building and formation. AA'e should remember when we awake each morning, not our intellect only, not our hands only, but our soul also has its work cut out for the day. Inwardly we are daily weaving habits that form character; we are gardeners, lopping, pruning and weeding attitudes of mind. » These industries are vital. In some senses they are more important than the outward activities for they touch the mainspring of our nature, and affect us eternally. ■ “Paul the Apostle was a master craftsman of the inward industries. He, when writing to a company of spiritual apprentices at Philippi, offered some suggestions how they, and we, could make the activities within, give stupendous value to the things without. He counsels: “Rejoice in the Lord alway.” Cultivate cheerfulness. He is not thinking of light laughter and empty mirth, but of a frame of miud that will enable men to look on a difficulty with a cheerful eye, or to lift a heavy load lightly. He affirms we can command the attitude we take up, we can select our own angle of vision. It is undisputed a man sees largely what he looks for; ‘Two men looked through prison bars, one saw mud, the other stars.' In'daily life there is plenty of sunshine if we look up, and there is plenty of shadow if we look down. You can find flowers all along the way or yon may simply look out for weeds. The Expert counsels the apprentices to produce by the inward industries a Christian optimism, to cultivate the habit of looking for the blessings, and so to rejoice in the Lord always. “Paul commands, ‘Produce sweet reasonableness.’ I say commands, for the injunction is in the emperative like the command of an officer to a young recruit. Some readers of his fords may reply, ‘But I am by nature, by temperament, extreme and dogmatic.’ The master craftsman replies, ‘You need not be controlled by natural temperament. Moderation is a product of the inward industries.’ In this spiritual department divine aid will enable you to transmute base metal into pure gold. Unreasonableness in a Christian is due to laziness. Gentle considerateness does not come simply by the asking; it is the product of a disciplined, hard-work-ing soul. AA’e are commanded to guard against exaggerations, to suppress violent self-assertiveness, to acquire the art of a dignified self-control. By the exercise of the inward industries, ‘let your, moderation be known unto all men.

“Paul teaches to willing learners how to develop the attitude of calmness, serenity, even in a time of storm. He says: ‘Do not worry yourself into impotence.' Do not let your face be furrowed by needless anxieties. Cultivate the spirit of tranquillity by the habit of prayerfulness; in everything by prayer let your requests be made known unto God, cast all your cares upon Him.’ Prayer is a working insrument in the production of faith, confidence and assurance. Therefore, by the industries within we can change despondency into hopefulness, worrying anxiety into sweet serenity, and carping cares into the calmness of quiet trust.

“Industries of whatever kind require a motive power. The hundred wheels of a factory do not move simply of themselves; there is a driving force communicated to them from without. So also with the soul’s machinery, AA’heu a Christian sets himself to produce high qualities, such a's we have considered, he experiences the need of an impelling force, a power beyond himself. Such a power there is. a dynamic adequate to our every need. The love of Christ constrains us: this is the driving force of the inward industries.”

“PUNISHMENT”

Christian Science Churches

“Everlasting Punishment” was the subject of the lesson-sermon in all Churches of Christ. Scientist, yesterday. The golden text was from Job xxxi, 3, “Is not destruction to the wicked? And a strange punishment to the workers of iniquity?” Among the citations which comprised the lesson-sermon were the following from the Bible: "The Lord is known ny the judgment which he executeth; tlie wicked is snared in the work of his own hands."; “The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath.” Psalm ix. 16: Prov, xv, 24.

Also the following passages from rhe Christian Science text book, “Science and Health with Key to tlie Scriptures.” by Alary Baker Eddy: "The five corporeal senses cannot take cognisance of Spirit. They cannot come into His presence, and must dwell in dreamland, until mortals arrive at the understanding that material life, with al) its sin, sickness, and death is an illusion against which divine science is engaged in a warfare of extermination” (p. 543).'