THE QUIET HOUR.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 6 September 1924, Page 16

THE QUIET HOUR.

(Published by Arrangement with Hawera Ministers’ Association.) ‘A PRAYER, Father of Spirits, we can never see Thee; but in our hearts we feel Thy touch, a touch of humbled almightiness, and a nearness as of light. We love Thee more than we can ever tell. We go out after Thee as if by right, and as if by sweet necessity. Every morning come to us before the sun rises, and every night watch over us till the stars die out. Make all things remind us of Thy presence, all beauty, all light, all music, all action, then our life will be large, and our inheritance will be infinite wealth. —Parker.

THE MEETING OF LIFE’S EXTREMES.

“Except ye become as little children.”—Matthew 18: 3. “That ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.”—Ephesians 3: 19. To become a little child; to be filled with all the fulness of God—how shall we reconcile these two aspirations? They need no reconciling. Do you want to get hack the qualities of your childhood ? You can only do so by going forward. There are only " two things which can give the qualities of a child.—emptiness and fulness—the opening and the completed, day. Take the Sermon on the Mount —the blessing which Jesus pronounced on certain qualities. They are the qualities of the child —humility, dissatisfaction, meekness, hunger, mercy, purity, peacemaking ; and the child has them by reason of its emptiness. But the man can get them back by his fulness. The child is “poor in spirit” because he has no ideal; the man. because his ideal is so high. The child often “mourns” because he is too small for his environment; the man because he is too big for his environment. The child is “meek” because he is shallow; the man because he is balancing the depths. The child “hungers” before be tastes food; the hunger of the spiritual man comes after tasting. The child “forgives” because he forgets; the man because he remembers—remembers the frailty of his brother’s frame. The child is “pure” because he is innocent; the man because he sees impurity’s stain. The child “makes peace” because he is ignorant of self-interest; the man, because be has learned selfsacrifice. The spiritual man gets back the virtues of the child; but he gets them back on the “Mount.” My brother, often have I heard thee lament the loss of thy youth. Ever art thou deploring that the hours of the morning pass so soon away, that the afternoon and evening come so quickly round. What if the afternoon and evening should be the road back to the morning! What if the fulness of experience should restore the very glory which was to thee associated with ignorance of the world! It can restore it; it will restore it. Thy youth is coming back to thee by the very chariot by which it departed. It departed with the opening experience; it. will return hv completed experience. The star that waits for thee is the “bright and morning star.” Behind the afternoon clouds, behind the evening shadows, behind the night watches, lies thy prospect of a.second dawn. Is is not written “when the fulness of time has come. God sent His Son”— the Child-Christ. So shall it he in the fulness of thine experience. Thy ChildChrist shall come. Life will dawn -'’new. Morn will break once more. Thou shalt stand again in the east with the rising sun.

—Matheson

“PAUL’S HYMN OF LOWE.”

“Love endureth all things.”— 1 Corinthians, 13: 7. There is one thing which has often struck me in Paul’s hymn of love: it is a hymn in praise of what love forbears to do. Take it verse by verse, clause by clause, and you will find this true. It opens with the strain “Love suffereth long”: it closes with the chord “Love abideth.” To “abide” is really the same thing as to “suffer long” ; we say “I cannot abide this” —cannot bear it. In its beginning, in its ending, in its intermediate stage, the hymn rings the changes on one note. “Love endureth.” Should we not have expected less prosaic ground ? Should we not have looked for the harp to tell not what love can bear, but what love can do? Why not speak of her gifts bestowed, of her treasures lavished, of her wealth diffused Why

not sing of the ointment she has outpoured, or the feet she has washed with her tears, or the spices she has r wrought to the sepulchre? Why not A tell of her bounties, or her charities, of her deeds of glory done? Would not this have made a grander hymn than the mere recital of how much she can bear without crying? Nay, my ' soul, it is not so; Paul is right, and thon art wrong. The glory of all things lies in their arduous path. The arduous path of love is its forbearance. Art thou seeking a romantic outlet for thy love ? Art thou looking for a chance to plunge into the river, or to face the devouring flame? Art thou saying, either to thv Christ, or to thy brother, “Bid me’that I come to thee on the waters’’? I would dissuade thee from such a prayer. It is not the height of the aim. that makes me dissuade thee. I do not, think the aim high enough, the test is sure enough. It is easy for thy love to expand itself in an ecstatic spasm. It is easy for “the passion-flower at the gate” to let fall “a splendid tear”—to he sacrificial in heroic circumstances. But the test of thy love is where the circumstances are not heroic. The test of thy love is where there is no splendour in the tear —where it falls in secret and is unseen. Can thy love hear .life’s little frictions? Can it heat the frettings by the world’s prose? Can it heat to be itself misunderstood, misinterpreted? Can it endure a delay in the response; can it support those moments of silence where there is no return ? If thy love can hear all this and not die, then it is worthy of “Paul’s Hymn.” —Matheson.

FRAGMENTS of thought. True sorrow for sin always contains' at the outset a hidden germ of joy lieeause the wound drives the sufferer ' to the physician.—Van Osterzee. The effect of every burden laid down is to.leave us relieved; and iv-hen the. soul has laid down that, of its faults at the feet of God, it feels as though it had wings.—Eugenie de Guerin. There is. a tremendous magnetic power in such a Christ-filled life—an attractiveness which is not in the person filled, but in Christ, who fills him, an attractiveness which draws men to Christ.—W. F. Gibbons: Let us not forget that there are two sides to dying—this earth side and the heaven side. The stars that go out when morning comes do not stop shining; only some other eyes in some other land are made glad by them.—M. J. Savage. Christ seems to delight to lavish His deepest sympathy on “him that has no helper.” Comfortless ones, be comforted! He often makes you portionless here, to drive you to Himself, the everlasting portion. He often dries every drill and fountain of earthly bliss, that He* may lead you to say “All my springs are in Thee.” He seems intent to fill up evei’v gap love has been forced to make. How beautifully? in one amazing verse, does He conjoin the depth and tenderness l of His comfort with the certainty of it—“As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and ye shall be comforted.” * The trouble is pot that we have so little, that we can give so little, and find so little that we can do, but that are n °t willing to consecrate what substance we have to he used-as He will.—J. N. Murdoch. Good thoughts are blessed guests, and should be heartily welcomed well fed, and much sought after. Like rose leaves, they give out a sweet smell if laid up in the iar of memory.—Spurgeon. _ God dwells in the thick darkness. Silence knows more of Him than, speech. His name is secret; therefore beware how you profane His stillness, ihe secret of the Lord is with them *S, av Him, and is felt by dwelling with God, bv thinking of God more than by talking of Him.—F. W Robertson.