SUNDAY AFTERNOON READING.

Evening Star, Issue 12871, 21 July 1906, Page 4

SUNDAY AFTERNOON READING.

+ _ n | A, COLUMN FOR THEQUIET HOUR. [Conducted by Rav. C, Boyall.] I have a'life with Christ to lire. But ere I live it must I wait TUI learning can clear answer give |Y- Of this or that book’s date? 6? I have a life in Christ to live, I have a death in Christ to die; |li And must I wait till Science give s;■/ AU doybts a full reply? - Nay, rather, while the sea of doubt Is raging wildly round about, ■i, Questioning of life, and death, and sin, r Let me but creep within y Thy fold, 0 Christ, and at Thy foot } - Take bnt the lowest seat, And hear Thine awful voice repeat In gentle accents, heavenly sweet; “Come unto me and rest; Believe mo and be blest.” J. C. Shairp. TEXTS. The joy of the Lord is your strength, Rejoioe, inasmuch as ye are partakers of ; Christ’s sufferings; that when His glory A 33 revealed ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. Rejoice in the Lord alway; and again I say, rejoice. HOW TO ENJOY OUR RELIGION. 1. The first point to be made is doubtless this: that religion is meant to make us joyful. It is not meant to depress us. As Mr Spurgeon says, there Is no commandment ip the Bible to the effect “ Groan in the Lord always; and again I say, groan.” Joy is a duty, and the Christian life should be a passage from joy to joy, from glory to glory, not from sadness to sadhess, and from shams to shame.

2. The nest point is that the source of this joy must always be supernatural. It must bo thus, because we know very well that the springs of earthly joy will not always flow. They may be flowing for manj; of ns now. ‘Their fullest flow is in the time of youth and hope, before we have been daunted by the great difficulties or oppressed by the great sorrows of tb© world. But even the youngest and most thoughtless knows that these springs are often suddenly dried even in youth, and that they dry up one by one ns life passes. What does this mean ? Why, simply this : that we are to draw more and more fully on the everlasting fountain. Thou of life the Fountain art} Freely let mo take of Thee; Spring Thou up within my heart. Rise to all eternity.

3. The first passage referred to in Nehemiah shows that oftentimes the spiritual and the earthly joy may be flowing together, the spiritual joy hallowing and refreshing the earthly. “ All the people,” we read, “ went their way to eat and to drink, and to send portions, and to make great mirth, because they understood the words that we declared unto them.” There is often a very deep earthly gladness that is strangely heightened and transfigured by the heavenly gladness, and all earthly jpy is good that can be sanctified by the Word of God and prayer. Christianity does not forbid the happy life, but points the way thereto.

4. But the_ next passage shows us that the joy that is drawn from earthly springs will fail us, and if we do not turn to the Eternal source, will soon lead us into sin and misery and undying regrets. St, Peter says that “ the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banqnetings, and abominable idolatries.” Thank God, many of us need not say this. We learned early to forsake the will of fhe Gentiles, and to try to do the will of God. We have not walked in lasciviousness and dnonkenness, or in idolatry. Some, however, may have to say in a very solemn sense: The time past of our life may suffice us for our sins; and they may have to say : But the time future of our life will not suffice us to repair them. The sooner all sin is left, the better for us, and it may always, with God’s grace, be left now. It may now be forgotten through Christ’s great sacrifice. But even though forsaken at this very moment, the earthly consequences often work themselves out disastrously to tho very end of life. 5. The next verse given is strikingly suggestive, and may fall harshly upon our ears: “ Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you.” And yet there is hardly a Christian Endeavor meeting where these words will be read, where a fiery trial is not coming, and coming soon to one at least who is present. It may be a father’s death, a mother’s death, or some even more terrible wrench of the heart. When it comes, you will think it so strange. Life had never shown itself in such colors

before. Wo are told in Professor Drummond’s life that he did not come soon into contact with suffering, and be used passionately to deny that suffering was necessary for service. But when at last sorrow came to him, he knew that it was so. You think that many people are exempt from trial; but perhaps the very sorest trials of life are never spoken of by the sufferers even to their most intimate friends. Do you speak much of yours, such as they are? I mean about the worst of them. There is no great poet who has told more of himself in nis books than Robert Browning, and yet lie writes : Here’s the work I hand, this scroll, Yours to take or leave; ns duly Mine remains the unproffered soul. This he did not tell to anybody, the last, the tenderest, the most terrible secret of his heart.

6. So, then, there must be suffering as well as joy, but in the Christian life suffering is not to kill the joy, but to raise it and purify it. The Apostle gives us some seasons. First, .he says, suffering makes you partakers ol Christ’s sufferings. You never understand a friend until you -come near him in suffering; you never know Christ as Ho is to be known in the vaetness of his , love and, pity till you suffer. Then there is another reason. If w© suffer for Christ, wo shall also reign with Him. Tho crown of thorns will be turned into a crown of gold which we shall cast at His feet. And above all, perhaps, there is granted to us when we suffer for the npe of Christ a greater fulness of the Spirit. “ Happy are ye, for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you.” What have _ been your happiest hours? Not, perhaps, the hours of triumph, but hours when other people might have thought you miserable. It was then that your spirits seemed to rise. “ We hayo never been so happy, never so near to God,” said a great preacher once, “as frhen wandering in the streets of a great city, the rain dasliing in our faces, and no man knowing us.” •W. Robertson Nicoll A PARABLE. [By an American Writer.] “Once there was a woman who loved a man, and he died, and she sought some way to reach him where be was, and could not. And One came to her, and said: ‘ 1 have been sent to help thee, for thy crying has been heard. What is they need ?’ “And she answered: '■ That I may find the soul of my husband, who is dead.’' “And the Shining One said to her: 'Thai may be done only if there is a bond' between you that Death could not break.’ * And she said : ‘ Surely there is a bond ! V have lain in hjs bosom. I have borne the sacred name of wife.’ “But the angel shdok. his head, and said: ‘ There is no bond. 1 “Then she raised her head proudly, and said: ‘Surely there is a bond ! I have Qeld his children in my arms; in their innocence have they bound us together. By the sorrow in which I bore them there is an enduring bond.’ “But the angel said, very sadly; ‘Even this will not suffice.’ “Then the woman paled, but she said; ‘My spirit and my husband were one; in naught were we separate. Each answered each without speech. We were one. Does not that bond hold ?’ “But the angel answered very low: 'lt does nqt hold. In the dqpiain of Death all these bonds of which thou spci&cst to nothing—the very shape pf

them has departed so that they are as if they never were. Think once more before I leave thee if there is one thread to bind thee to him whom thou lovest, for if not passed from thee for over.’ “ And the woman was silent, hut she cried to herself desperately: ‘He shall not go from me!’ Ana the angel withdrew a little way. And the woman thought and thought, with deep inward communing, and after a space she raised her face, and said : ‘Once—but it was long ago—be and I thought of God together.’ “ And the angel gave a loud cry, and his shining wings smote the earth. And he said : ‘ Thou hast found the bond, f thou hast found the bond 1’ “And the woman looked, and lo! there lay in her hand a tiny thread, faintly golden, as if woven from the strands of the sunlight, and it led into the darkness.” A GOOD STORY. [Told by D. L. Moody.] A few years ago I was attending a Sabbath school convention in a littlo town, where a man to whom I was a stranger took me into his house It was a warm day, and the curtains were down, so that the room was dark. He excused himself because he had some matters to attend to. I was left alone. It was so dark that I could not re id, and I walked up and down the room till I felt lonely. Presently he came mi. and I said : “Have you no children?” Jam very fond of children, and I thought if he had any I- could play wifh them. He said no; he had had one, but God had taken her from him; she '«*aK in’ Heaven, and he said he was glad of it. “ How is that?” I asked; “was she deformed, or was anything wrong with her?” “No,” said he, “she was as perfect ascould be.” 1 asked liqw old she was. “Seven.” “'What do you mean by saying you are glad she is in Heaven?” l‘Well, said he, “I worshipped that child. I was making money for my child; she was the idol of my heart, but I did not know it. One day I found my child sick, a id in a few days she died. I accused God of being unjust in sparing the families of others and taking away my child, and I refused to be reconciled. I would have —Torn God from His Throne—if I could. Eor threo days and niglits I neither ate, nor drank, nor slept. 1 was almost mad. On the third day I buried her, and when I came home, as I walked up and down the room, I thought I heard the voice qf my little one; but then I thought “ No, that voice is hushed for ever.’ Then I thought I heard her Hi He feet coming towards men, but then I said: ‘No, I shall never hear those littlo feet again.’ At last I threw myself on my bed, and began to weep. Nature gave way, and I fell asleep. I thought I was crossing a waste, barren field, and I came to a river that looked so cold, and dark, and dreary that I drew back from it; but, looking across, I saw the most beautiful land my eyes had ever rested upon, and as I gazed I thought that death, and sickness, and disease could never enter there. Then I saw a company on the other side, and among them my own darling child. She came to the bank of the river and, waving her angel hand, said: ‘ Father, come right this way; it is so beautiful here.’ I then went to the water’s edge and thought 1 would plunge in, but it was too deep for me—l could not swim. I thought I would give anything to cross. While I was wandering up and down

—The Little Angel Voice—came across the stream : ‘ Come right tills way, father; it is beautiful here!’ All at once I heard a voice as if it came from Heaven, saying: ‘I am the Way, tho Truth, and the Life. No man cometh unto the Father but b'y Me.’ The voice awoke me from sleep. I thought it was my God calling me, and that if I would ever see rny child again I must come to God through Jesus Christ. That night I knelt beside my bed and gave myself to God. Now I no longer look upon my child as sleeping in her grave, but I see her with the eye of faith in that beautiful land, and every night when I lie down I hear her sweet voice saying: ‘ Come right this way, father,’ and every morning I hear her repeating the same words.”