THE QUIET HOUR.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 30 August 1924, Page 15

THE QUIET HOUR.

(Published by arrangement with the Hawera Ministers’ Association.)

A BOY’S PRAYER

Our Father, I thank Thee that Thpu art my friend, and ready to help me every day. I pray Thee for clean hands, dean words, and clean thougnts. Help me always to stand for the hard right against the easy wrong. Save me from habits that do harm. Teach me to work as hard, and play as fair in Thy sight alone, as if the whole world saw. Forgive me when I am unkind, and help me to forgive others who seek my injury. Keep me ready to help others without thought of my own interests, and send many chances each day for me to do a little good, and so grow more like the Master—for Christ’ sake, Amen.

THE ANVIL OF GOD’S WORD. One eve I paused beside a blacksmith’s door, And heard the anvil ring the Vesper chime; Then, looking in, I saw upon the floor Old hammers worn with beating years of time. “How many anvils have you had,” said I, “To wear and batter all these hammers so?” “Just one,” said, he; and then, with twinkling eye, “The anvil wears the hammers out, . you know.”

“And so,” I thought, “the anvil of God’s Word, For ages sceptic blows have beat upon; Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard, The Anvil is unharmed —the hammers gone:”

IN THE STAR, NOT IN THE SQUIB

“The Christian ideal should be found in the star and not in the squib,” is a pregnant sentence from an article in the Christian World, by Ebenezer Rees, on “Constancy.” He said some people work in spurts, they go off in gallops and as suddenly quit the field. Brisk starters and poor stayers, a blaze of firewoi'ks and then the dark. When the glare is over the stars continue to shine, shedding their gentle glow upon the world. “Be ye steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.”

THE REDISCOVERED BIBLE. The Rev. A. H. Collins recently preached an interesting sermon on “The Rediscovered Bible.” In the course of his sermon, Mr Collins said: “The story of the Bible is the story of a succession of rediscoveries. Luther rediscovered the doctrine of justification by faith, Carey rediscovered the missionary message of the Gospel, Wesley rediscovered the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the Quakers rediscovered the, doctrine of the Spirit’s direct and unobstructed access to the human soul. The task which confronts us to-day is the rediscovery of the social teaching of the Bible and its application to international and industrial questions. We do not- need a new Bible, but the reading of the Old Book with open eyes and humble hearts; not some patent concotion of human cleverness, but the Bible believed with a new passion and followed with fearless fidelity. We have done almost everything with the Bible except read it.”

S STRAINING AT GNATS AND SWALLOWING CAMELS.

Dr. Charles H. Sheldon, author of “In His Steps” and now editor of the United States Christian Herald! recently wrote regarding the Fundamen-talist-Modernist controversy: “The whole discussion going on over the questions that are being debated seems to me like the old straining at gnats and swallowing camels. At a time when great questions affecting the conduct of men ought to be occupying the thought and action of Christ’s disciples, it seems like the profoundest misuse of energy and time to be discussing things that Jesus himself never even mentioned, and which He never emphasised as essential to salvation. The' weighty matters of justice and brotherhood and service are being neglected by all who are giving their passionate attention to things that) in comparison are trivial.

PLAYERS OR BARRACKERS. The Church, if it is anything, should he an army fighting the cause of righteousness. The leader of a Church is strong only as its individual Church members are loyal and determined to fight. “What kind of a Churchman am I ? How much can I be depended upon? How heavy blows am I hitting in this struggle?”—are questions Churchmen might well answer. Too many Churches to-day are set up like a football game with 30 people who play the game, and thousands who stand on the line and barrack when someone else plays the game and takes the humus. Singularly enough, it ,is the people on the line who do all the complaining and fault-finding with the game and the referee. Have we, in relation to our own Church, been playing the game or standing on the line criticising the referee and the plavers? —The Man.

MOTHERS. Lord, give the mothers of the world More love to do their part; That love which reaches not alone , The children made by birth their own, But every childish, heart. Wake in their souls true motherhood Which aims at universal good. —Ella Wheeler Wilcox. THE ADVENT OUTLOOK. “The Advent outlook is tragic,” says the. Church Times. “Yet it will have its uses if it teaches us the true Advent lesson that here we have no continuing city. Amid the chaos of a world, with an evil past behind us and a troublous future before, we can still rest quiet in the linn faith in the old .Advent- message that in spite of all signs ‘our redemption draweth nigh.’ “And may we as a last word repeat Christina Rossetti’s beautiful lines: “‘The days are evil looking back, The coining days are dim; f et count we not his promise slack. But watch and wait for Him ’ ” THE HEAVENLY SPIRIT. Once upon a time, so runs the legend, there lived, in the far Judean hills, two affectionate brothers, tilling a- farm together. One had a wife and a household of children ; the other was a lonely man. One night, in the harvest time, the older brother said to his wife, ‘‘My brother is a lonely man. I will go out and move some of the sheaves from my side of t he field over to his, so that

when he sees them in the morning his heart will be cheered by the abundance.” And he did.

That night the other brother said to his workmen, “My brother has a houseful and many mouths to fill. 1 am alone, and do' not need all this wealth. I will go and move some of my sheaves over to his field, so that he shall rejoice in the morning when he sees how great is his store.” And he did.

And they did this that night and the next in the sheltering dark. But on the third ,night the moon came out, and they met face to face, each with his arms filled with sheaves.

On that spot, says the legend, was built the temple of Jerusalem, for it was esteemed that there earth came nearest the heayen.—Grain Grower’s Guide. F. W G