WORLD THOUGHT POINTS.

Evening Star, Issue 14784, 27 January 1912, Page 2

WORLD THOUGHT POINTS.

JS'o. rv. [By Thestib.] Tlx> degree of realisation of a common aspiration obtainable by even the temporary subsidence of artificial limitations was very clearly illustrated by the Rev. Cyril Hephor, M.A., in an interesting article in a recent number of the 'Commonwealth.' Mr Hopher was one of tho Anglican missioners who visited New Zealand in 1910, and the article iu question recounts —A Personal Experience—in the Dominion during the course of that mission. Tixugh the experience occurred a year before the time of writings tho recollection remained ns vividly as though ifc happened but the previous day. and consequently littlo effort was needed to visualise the external setting—the circle of pines and cypresses within which stands the wooden church at H , with its prim littlo pinnacled Gothic tcwe-r. That gloriole spring afternoon the old-world element of architecture and trees was permeated with an atmosphere peculiarly antipodean, for " we " were going to a Quakers' meeting' in church. The "we " in this case is that of Mr Hepher, and he pictures so clearly the afternoon sunshine and tho whitepainted church amongst tha restful green of the trees that he shall be permitted. though curtailed as to extent, to continue to-i'se that pronoun in telling us of his experience. "We are going." he continue*., '• to a Quakers' meeting in church. Sufficiently Antipodean! It was from the Quaker el'.nent in his parish that the request came- to tho vicar to allow tho irse of tire vestry once a week for 'meeting.' Re did not refuse This being the Antipodes, it, was quite, evident he would not. Pre-t-ently the Quaker element enlarged itself. The vicar joined the Saturday meeting, so did his wife, so, too —which is much mere significant—did the Theoeophists. It migrated with Episcopal permission from -v-ostry to church. So iiiaX sunlit afr-Cruoon I joined the little group, and within tho church, wiio-ro the senses were rested in the cool, t-ofb light, wo knelt without a word. Presently some rose from their knees and sat down. We were but a handful. Them was no sound of vocal prayer. |No leader a.f faldstool nor altar, *bub j ' meeting' had begun. What happened I cannot put into words, but some aspects of the experience I must- try to express. Fireb there came very quietly tho sens© of a Presence. Tho work of prayer grow strangely oasy. We wore not resolutely fixing our minds upon a friend in a far country; v.e were listening to One who was there in tha church—speaking. Tho still air seemed to vibrate, with His presence in a way that cculd be- felt. God was speaking to us. not in words or voices, but that speech which does not need to be uttered; yet, if I may say so bold a thing, it was not what He was sajdng thai mattered so much as that He was there and jwo with Him. That was enough. Then, j again, ono perception that grew as the I minutes slipped by unnoticed was the eease of fellowship. We in that church were no longer isolated individuals. It was unquestionably a corporate- act in which we were engaged, or rather a corporate experience that had come to us. Afterwards I came to understand that this manner of I prayer depends on feUowship of mind, and [ creates what it depends on. The Quakers end their meeting by shaking hands in. [ silence. The symnol of fellowship cannot be repressed, if their experiences are like ours at this meeting I can perfectly understand the- significance they set en their simple sacrament of friendship. They cuter their meeting, too, in the spirit of unanimity. One jdea. is dominant in every mind: that of waiting upon God, waiting for the moving of the Spirit. 1 found, too. that the Theosopliists attached the greatest importance to unanimity. The little cirdc at Jihad been guiding their life and action on this principle. None of them had undertaken any new venture unless to all it had appeared right. As I try in my mind to weigh the experience, which I have tpld very inadequately, but at least without conscious exaggeration or over-statement, what shall I ray of jt? It was to me a profoundly new experience, different in kind front other times of realisation of the Presence, in that it was, as I think, the psychic approach to the spiritual world. To many the word psychic is a sutilcient condemnation. My reply is that the God who made the. spiritual made also the psychic, and that there can be no junction or capacity of onr natures which is not for holy uses. In that little community of elements so divided &s Quaker, Thecsophist. and Evangelical Cburchmanship this silence had proved a unifying force of extraordinary power. Later I made further proof of that force. My next mission was in the parish of one who had brought up on the extremist wing of Protestantism within the Church. Afterwards he told me how horrified he was when his bishop interfered with the forerunner's arrangements, and sent me to him instead of a missioner believed to bo more of his own type of churchmanship. Bat daily during that mission we had our * quiet meeting,' and day by day we grew into closer fellowship. 1 am perfectly certain that without that uniting silence in ruch day the mission could cady have ended in disaster. As it was, 1 shall never forget its climax in the thanksgiving Eucharist, sung at sunrise in a church filled win eager people who had driven in, many of them, miles; the altar decked with arum lilus—nay, the whole east end a bower if them ; the kneeling men and women singing, with tears of joy, the last triumphant, mission hymn. But that ending was the direct fruit, as I know, of the daily half-hour of silence. Is there no possibility here? If little groups of ministers and priests, Nonconformists, Churchmen. liomans could thus meet, a solvent of our divisions wonkl surely be set in operation Dr Der.rirer declares with trnth that the Quaker peril is to derpise sacraments. Let ma hasten to add that the hs*.d of a family of Friends told me, as he drove me to the station, that lis had definitely decided to seek confirmation, and that every single Theosophist in the same village "signed a request, with the promise of personal attendance, for the Eucharist to be celebrated during the week. . . . Then I understood. Our little separate folds were forgotten. We were all one flock, following one Shepherd."