THE QUIET HOUR.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 23 August 1924, Page 13

THE QUIET HOUR.

(Published by arrangement- with the Hawera Ministers’ Association.) OPTIMIST AND PESSIMIST, ETC. AYhether our toil and our daily living are to us a blessing or a bane depends on the kind of persons we are. This i.s- set forth in the following verses: Two men toiled side by side from sun to sun And both were poor; Both sat with children, when the day was done. About their door. One saw the beautiful in crimson cloud And shining moon; The other, with his head in sadness bowed, Made night of noon. One loved each tree and flower and singing bird On mount or plain ; No music in the soul of one was stirred By leaf or rain. One saw the good in every fellow-man. And hoped the best; The other marvelled at his Master’s plan. And doubt confessed. One, having God above and heaven below, AA T as satisfied; The other, discontented, lived in woe, And hopeless died. THE TIME SPIRIT. The Christian is better typified in the following lines by Anne Burnham Bryant, by the c-.hild looking for tomorrow than by the old man hunting for yesterday :. ° I met a child with troubled eyes, that swift my heart did win : 0-h, could you find To-morrow please?” said little Dimple-chin. The loveliest things are happening To-morrow, don’t you know? I never quite- catch up with it, however fast I go!” I met a man whose, eyes were dim with many tears unshed : “f have been looking everywhere for Yesterday,” he said, “The tenderest- and sweetest things the. things I loved the best, “ ’ ihey all were Yesterday’s—|' pray your kindness in my quest!” And all the while a Presence sweet stood wondering between, AVith gentle eyes, and gracious hands and tender, bounteous mien; ’ I am. To-day!” she whispered low, and spread her eager hands; But child and man, unseeing, looked afar to other lands. CONDEMNED. At a Government arsenal I saw an immense piece of steel. It had been skilfully turned into the form of an immense gun by weeks of accurate work involved in the process. In the workmanship there was no error. The tools and implements they use there measure to the ten-thousandth part of an inch. But as the great bulk of metal lay there I noticed a chalk mark upon it, and, on close examination, I read “Condemned.” I asked the attendant why that apparently perfect piece of work was condemned. He pointed out some little indentations about the size of a pin-head, which clotted the gun in a dozen places. These seemed insignificant. They seemed very minute in comparison with the size of the steel ingot. They did not, appear to go deeper than a thirty-second of an inch; and yet the gun was condemned. No one could tell what the extent- would be of the influence of those bubbles. For all that could be determined there might be a weakness extending through the entire piece of metal, so that in the crisis of war or battle the mighty engine capable of hurling half a ton of metal a dozen miles and hitting a target with fine accuracy, might, nevertheless, under the heat of battle and the strain of powder, burst into a •thousand fragments. AA"e cannot afford to ignore our slightest faults. Some basic flaw may destroy our characters and ruin others, he we ever so perfect in other points. “Clear thou me from hidden faults.” —C.M.G. THE ULTIMATE STANDARD.

In the Standard Office, one of the departments of the British .Government, there is kept a bar of bronze. It is a yard long, and is the authorised unit of measurement, not only throughout the British Empire, but in the United States as well. Every piece of cloth you buy, every strip of lumber you handle, every panel of fence you build, every piece of paper you hang, every strip of carpet you lay—is counted in inches or feet or yards or rods with reference to that bit of metal. It is ultimate truth, the determining factor, the court of last appeal, so far as things are concerned which we estimate by yardstick or tape-line. But the interesting tiling about the bar of bronze i.s that it i.s supposed to have been decided by the length of the King’s arm during whose reign the system was established. So that when you tell me how tall you are, or how much real estate you own, or how far you have travelled, you are really going back to the reach of a king from shoulder to finger-tip. AY ell. as in the market-place, 6o in the realm of the heart and the soul We like to have authority hack of us AYe must have. And our unit of measurement, our standard of comparison. for things spiritual as for things tangible, is a King. Not the sweep oi His arm. but the heart of Him the hfo of Him, even the heart and the life of Jesus Christ. Every idea you entertain, every enterprise von undertake, you are bound to test by Jesus Christ.—T.H.H.