THE QUIET HOUR.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 3 January 1925, Page 14

THE QUIET HOUR.

THE MORNING TRUMPETS. There is an old Jewish legend which tells how, each morning m heaven, the trumpets ring out; and when Lucifer, son of the morning, was asked, after h© had fallen from heaven, what he missed most, lie replied, “I miss most of all the trumpets that are sounded in the morning.” And that is what I miss most in the individual Christian life and the corporate church life of to-day. I miss the trumpets that are sounded in the morning. I miss the note of courage, confidence, defiance. We are most familiar with Misereres than we are with Te Deunis. Our religion is marked by sadness and melancholy, rather than by the abandonment of jay that sounds through the psalm, with its summons to praise God “ with the sound of the trumpet,” to “praise Him upon the loud cymbals,’’ to “ praise him upon the high s(funding cymbals.”—J. D. Jones. EVERYBODY’S BIRTHDAY. The opening of the year is everybody’s birthday. God has let us share his work. God lias gifts for days to come. We may send our 'thoughts back through the ways of memory; we must send them forth through opening paths of faith and hope. The past will come no more, but to-day is ours and to-morrow is in the hands of God, who loves us. The opening of the year is the birthday of the children. We who have grown up and yet retain a childlike heart at rest in God must work to make this a fit world for the child. \Ye must see that lie has a. chance to live on the high levels; that doors of opportunity are open; that he has a place and time for wholesome play; that the whole atmosphere of his life is clear and bracing. The call for effort, for endurance, for overcoming will not cease, But some, at least, of the evils that the father’s knew are teken out of the path of the child.

BIRTHDAYS OF THE OLD. Birthdays and New Year days too often come like the stroke of a passing bell to those who are growing old. Their world seems of the past, their day is over, they have less and less to gain or give. Yet this is not the attitude of any followers of Christ. To those who. are growing old in the experience with God —to those who can look back without sadness because the ended way is lighted with tokens of love, and can look forward without fear because the same soft radiance falls upon tlie path, we bring our New Year greetings and congratulations. There is a wisdom and breadth of vision to which youth and maturity alike are strangers. The' year is theirs for rest and confidence which they have earned. They arc not afraid of dying, for they have lived, and tlie same Lord is with them in all experiences of this or any other world.

May Everybody’s Birthday, then, bring jov and courage! Mhv God’s Spirit hell) us each and every one to walk with God and spend a joyful year in the service of his Kingdom.— Great Thoughts.

FRET NOT. H-e who lrets has lost his God —is indeed as if God were not. Surely it is worse than having no God, to kneel down and say, “Our Father Who art in heaven,” and then to go forth fretting and fearing, as if He never knew or cared. It is worse than being an orphan, to have a Father and yet forget His love How perplexed the angels must be at the sight of the fretting child of a Heavenly Father 1 “Has he not a Father?” asks one in amazement. “Does not his Father know all about him?” says a third. “Is not his Father great and rich?” asks a fourth. “Has not his Father given us charge concerning him ?” say they all; how.then can he fret?” If there be one grain of truth in our belief that .there is a living God Who holds iis unutterably dear, Who is seeking in all tilings 'and through all things ever to lead us to the highest, the fullest, to the best, what room is there for us to fret .or fear? — M. G. Pearse. IN THE TEMPTED HOUR, No sudden temptation can destroy us while we live at our spiritual best.—W. L. Watkinson. No man should thrust himself into temptation. He should pray to be delivered from it. Foolhardiness issues in calamity.—J. D. Jones. Only those temptations which we encounter on the way of duty, in the path of concentration, only those has our Lord promised us that we shall conquer. ... If you are in tempta-

tion for temptation’s sake, with no purpose beyond it you are lost. —Phillips Brooks. Were you hard as adamant, your duty would still he kept out of the way of temptation. But you are a creature whose moral power is weak. I implore you, thei’efore, as you would honour your God and stand in His brightness not to- go where the temptation to sin is glaring, and flatter yourself that you will come out guileless.—C. H. Spurgeon. TO REACH THE GOAL. The way to discover and reach the goal is for each one of us to begin in dead earnest. When one person really steps out into the desperate adventure of following Jesus all the way, someone else will see an.d want to follow too. There is a splendid contagion in courageous goodwill. One man, one church, one nation, that takes tlie risks of such a following may lead the world to a better day.- Is it not worth trying? Is it not, in fact, the one thing in the world that is really worth trying? Is it not the nay by which we .and our brothers may come to know God? —Friends Magazine.