THE QUIET HOUR.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 6 December 1924, Page 13

THE QUIET HOUR.

(Published by arrangement with the Hawera Ministers’ Association.) STRENGTH THROUGH PRAYER. It is impossible to over-estimate the power of prayer and its unspeakable value; it is the infallible mark of every true saint of God. . As no man can live naturally without breathing, so no man can live spiritually without prayer. Moreover, prayer is the great outlet of fear, sorrow, and anxiety; it brings deliverance, from the sorest trials, and opens the way of escape from the greatest difficulties. It is also the inlet of heaven’s choicest blessings. There is .no virtue, grace, or consolation in the Spirit that 'may not be granted in answer to prayer. It is the conduit pipe by which living waters descend from the throne of God into the believer’s soul. It is a celestial ladder by which we,can rise up to true fellowship with God; and reach higher in the Divine life. ' Never let prayer take the place' of; Christ. Nothing, not even prayer, must come between Him and the soul. Christ,, in His finished work, Christ in His office, as mediator at the Father’s right hand, Christ in His free promise, Christ in His willingness and poiver to save to the uttermost—here alone is the; resting place of every weary, anxious soul.

FULNESS OF LIFE.

I say to my friend, “Be a Christian.” That means to be a full man. And be says to me, “I have not time to be a Christian. I have not room. If my life was not so full. You don’t know how hard I work from morning to night. What time is there for me to be,a Christian? What time is there, what room .is there., for Christianity in such a life as mine?’’ But.does not it come to seem to us so strange, so absurd; if it was not so melancholy, that man should say such a thing as that? .It is as if- the engine had said it had no room for the steam. It is as if the tree had' said it had no room for the sap.' It is as if the ocean had said it-had: no robin for the tide. It is as if the. man had said he had no room Tor hid soul. It is as if life had said it had no time to live, when it is life.. It is not something that is added tb life. It is life: A man is not living without it.; And for man to say that “I am so. full in life that I have no room for liife;” you see immediatelv to what absurdity it reduces itself. *

MULTIPLICATION BY DIVISION,

If the widow had kept her little meal and oil for Jier own use, she and her son had starved.; Dividing multiplied It. Such is -GcxPs Arithmetic. To keep s ; I® lose. . To hold and hoard is to diminish. To scatter is to increase. Men who put their bodies wholly into the service of God with implicit trust in Him do not brbak down from overwork. It is the worry, fretting and chafing, resulting from a failure thus to commit to God which shatters nerves And calls for protracted vacations. After one has been in the pastorate for inaiiy .years,- there is a danger of his barrel of sermons failing, and, if it does, It is because his thinking and time have not been given wholly to God. The lad- with the few loaves, and fishes had the pleasure of seeing them multiplied intp enough to feed the five thousand. The secret of such success was tliat he.comniitted his little supply to Jesus, and He always sees to it that what is givfjii wholly to Him shall not fail, but multiply. .Churches and enterprises fail for the lack of consecration. If we use for God every barrel and cruse of money, time, talent, and opportunity we have, there will be plenty and to spare.—C. W. P. FRAGMENTS OF THOUGHT. Sunlight is never more grateful than after a long watch in the midnight blackness; Christ’s presence is never ihore acceptable than after a time of weeping over His departure. It is a sad thing that we should have to lose our mercies to teach us to be grateful for them; let Us niourn over this crookedness of our nature; and let us strive to express our thankfulness for mercies, so that we may not have to lament their removal. If thou desirest Christ for a perpetual Guest, give Him all the keys of Thine heart; let not one cabinet be locked up from Him; give Him the range of every room and the key of every chamber; thus you will constrain Him to remain.-;—Spurgeon. God does hot delay our prayers' because He has no mind to give, but that by enlarging our desires He may give us more largely.—Anselm. The thoroughly great men are those who have done everything thoroughly, and .who have never despised anything* however small, of God’s making Buskin. s '

The secret of perfect trust is very simple, yet but few; learn it. We seek by many mistaken Ways an increase of faith, and find only disappointment. Our greatest mistake is looking within rather than without.—Dr. A. T. Pierson.

If Christ is more excellent at one time than another it certainly is in “the cloudy and dark day.” We can never so well see the true colour of Christ’s love as in the night of weeping. Christ in the dungeon, Christ on tlie bed of sickness, Christ in poverty is Christ indeed to a sanctified man. No vision of Christ . Jesus is so truly a revelation as that which is seen in the Patinos of suffering. This He proves to His belovefd, not by mere words of promise, but by actual de*ds of affection. As our sufferings abound, so He makes our consolation to abound. — Spurgeon. Two men please God —.who serves Him with all his heart because he knows Him, who seeks Him with all his heart because he knows Him not. — Ivan Panin.

It is no great matter to live lovingly with good-natured, humble, and meek persons; but he who can do so with the froward, wilful, ignorant, peevish, and perverse, hath true charity.—Thomas a Kempis. Through the week we go down into the valleys of care and shadow and toil. But our Sabbaths should be hills of light and joy in God’s presence. And so, as the time rolls by, we shall go from mountain-top to mountain-top, till at last we catch the glory of the gate, and enter in. to go no more out forever!—H. ' rv . Beecher.