THE QUIET HOUR.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 11 October 1924, Page 14

THE QUIET HOUR.

(Published by arrangement with the Hawera Minister's’ Association.) THOUGHTS ABOUT PRAYER.. “If the Church must resort chiefly to prayer for the missionary workers workers and Church must labour together in prayer for desired conversions; and foreign work as a rule has been less fruitful in such results where the Church has least lavished her prayers.” “I.t is the want of prayer that is disruptive and that distorts the plans of God.”—Speer. “The world just now is sadly in need of better service, but before this can be rendered there must be better prayer.”—Bishop Brent. _ “Ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye have not, because ye ask amiss.”— James iv, 3. “It is much more difficult to pray for missions than to give to them. We can only really pray for missions if we habitually lead a life of prayer, and a life of prayer can only be led if we have entered into a life of communion with God.’’—Professor Warneck. “Ye that are the Lord's remembrancers—take ye no rest, and give Him no rest, till He establish and till He make Jerusalem a praise on the earth.”—lsa, lxii. 6, 7. “Whatever influences Christians one by one, and also corporately, to devote themselves in the right spirit and manner to missionary intercession, will most directly and effectively ensure the realisation of the missionary purposes of .Christ,” —Mott. “Personally, I firmly believe that only the prayers of friends at home enable use to keep at our work under climatic conditions so enervating arid depressing that human nature must succumb.” —A Missionary in India, “Nothing less than a Church whose individual members are tremendously in earnest can evangelise "the nonChristian world.”—Mott. “The neglect of prayer by the Church, at home means defeat at the front of battle!” —Edinburgh Conference Report. LITTLE SEEDS. “The kingdom of Heaven is dike to a grain of mustard seed .... the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it . . . becometh a tree.”— Matt. xiii. 31, 32. Many great histories of blessing may he traced back to a very small seed. A woman whose name is forgotten dropped a tract or little book in the way of a man named Richard Baxter. He picked it up and read it, and it led him to Christ. He became a holy Christian, and wrote a book entitled “A Call to the Unconverted,” which brought many persons to the Saviour, and among others Philip Doddridge. Philip Doddridge in turn wrote “The Rise and Progress of Religion,” which led many into the kingdom of God, among them the great Wilberforce. Wilber force wrote “A Practical View of Christianity,” which was the means of saving a multitude, among them Legh Richmond. In his turn Legh Richmond wrote, the book called “The Dairyman’s Daughter,” which has been instrumental in the conversion of many thousands. The dropping of that one little tract seemed a very small thing to do; but see what a wonderful, many-branched tree has sprung from it! This is only one illustration, of marvels of grace coming from the most minute grains of the heavenly seed. One seed planted in a heart, dropped by some very humble worker, perhaps unconsciously, may not only save a soul for an eternity of blessedness, hut may start a series of divine influences which shall reach thousands of other lives. A simple invitation from his brother brought Simon to Jesus; and what a tree sprang from that seed! Let us go on, day by day, dropping ■seeds into as many hearts as we can. We may not always know what comes of them, hut from any one of them may Spring a history of blessing which shall reach thousands of souls. The branches of the trte from one seed may spread over all lands. —J. R. Miller. MISSIONARY IMPERIALISM. Imperialism is in the air. It meets us at every turn. Our newspapers are full of it. The very are emblazoned with it. Our ears are deafened with it. Whether what is called an Imperial policy is the best fitted to enable , us to discharge our duty with respect to our vast colonial possessions, consistently with our purely national and insular responsibilities, Ido not venture to say. I am no politician. But as one who .has spent the best years of his life in Central Africa, and who has come very closely in contact with the needs of its suffering peoples, I would venture to declare unhesitatingly my deepest conviction—'the very deepest conviction of my soul—that nothing but an Imperial policy deliberately adopted and unswervingly pursued by our Church in her missionary enterprise can ever meet the necessities of the great heathen world in general, and of the dark continent of Africa in particular. But it may be asked: “Wliat do you mean by an Imperial policy in missionary enterprise?” I mean a due and proper correspondence between the end in view and the means epiployed for the accomplishment of that end. The end of all. the missionary work of our Church, I take it, is nothing less than that “the kingdoms of this world may become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.” And if this be so, let us sec to it that the means correspond with the end—in one word, that they are Imperial. No more niggardly gifts; no more perfunctory service; no more half-hearted, lukewarm prayers—but the pouring-out before God, warm from the heart, our fondest and most fervent petitions—the intensest longings of our soul for the ingathering of those tribes yet “sitting in darkness and in the of death”—the “all” yielded up by all; “the silver and the gold”'; the .whole life—body, soul and spirit—to be used as and when and where He pleases, even though it may be in the “uttermost part,? of the earth.”

This, it seems to me, and nothing than this, is worthy of our Divine Lord and Master and of the great end we have in view—- " Christ for the world, And the world for Christ.” —Bishop Tucker. "Christ of the Andes,” Christ of Everywhere, Great lover of the hills, the open air, And patient lover of impatient men. Who blindly strive and sing and strive aecain, i.hou living Word, larger than anv creed. Thou Love Divine, uttered in human deed, Oh, teach the world, warring and wandering still, Thy way of Peace, the footpath of Good Will. —Henry Van Dvke.