QUIET HOUR

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 14 November 1925, Page 20

QUIET HOUR

A PRAYER

Almighty God, Who hidest in Thy hand all good, and dost, out ot In full heart, give that which we most need when wo desire it; we beseech Thee for clean hearts. We pray that we may choose Thee for our portion, and firmly adhere to the choice amid a temptations and difficulties. So all things be on our side, and all thing, yield to us their sweetness and the.r highest good.

Dear God, 1 thank Thee, in these later days, . ~ T Because Thou didst not give me alt sought; Because Thou didst not order all my ways According to my thought.

Yes, 1 remember! Long ago it seemed A harder thing to say “Thy will be

done”; , , . To lay aside the dreams I had dreamed, And bright hopes, one by one.

To-day! ah! Now I see with clearer eyes By only Love this life of mine was planned. God sees the end that on before us lies, Lonu ere we understand. —Selected.

READ THE BIBLE. (By Dr. J. H. Howell.) There are many who busy themselves with the intricate problems of the Bible who have no mastery of the experimental knowledge of Christ. They spend their time in studying the signposts, but they have no vital acquaintance with the road. They have a magnificent knowledge of the map of the country, but they are not familiar with its bracing air, and its refreshing springs, and its coverts from the tempests, and its pleasant arbours by the way, and its lilies of peace, and its rich and plentiful fruits which are good for all the changing seasons of our life. They know the Book in the letter, but they are strangers to its spirit. They know it as literature, they do not know it as revelation. They come to it as students, they do not come to it as sinners; they bring their curiosity, they do not bring their needs. They treat it as a manual of absorbing mental interest, they do not regard it as a companion in the eternal concerns of the soul. They do everything with the Bible except prove it. They remain in the lecture-room and discuss its doctrines j they" do not go into tlie infirmary and apply its teaching to broken lives, and more particularly to their own. Suppose I close the Bible and refuse to listen to its precepts, and I regard all its counsel as effete and obsolete. Where shall I find direction re-erection of fallen lives? Where would you advise me to go? I had a letter last night from a man who was broken—one. of a vast multitule of broken people, lying overwhelmed in the sense of irreparable disaster. What would you advise me to say to him if I close the Bible? What kind of profitable counsel may I offer him for the re.-erection of his life?

I go to my book-shelves and I take clown the best book on ethics in my ■library. I turn to a chapter which I think might be helpful. It bears the title, “Moral Pathology,” and, indeed. I find a magnificent analysis of moral disease'. But when I search for some counsel as to how a man who is held ;ii moral disease can be brought to moral life again, I search in vain. I take another book from my shelves—a book which, when it was first published, made some stir in the world. This book has an engaging title, “The Service of Alan. ” Here surely is a book in which I shall find counsel suitable for the reconstruction of a broken life. But here is what I read: “It is no use disguising the fact—there is no remedy for a bad heart. ”

No re-erection! If you are broken, you must remain in your brokenness—you must burn away in your shame. “No remedy for a bad heart!”

All! but there is! Here is a sacred manual—a manual which describes the restoring means of grace. And if you know 'in the circle of your associates any man who is.broken in will, or in hope, or in faith, let me urge you to offer him the counsels of this book. Ho will find a wealth- of hope, of heartening, and an immediacy of counsel which will lead him to the restoring springs of life. Or, if you yourself are broken, and are lying with damaged wings, and cannot soar, and are like a bird that has lost its power of flight, there are counsels in this book by which you can be made .whole again. “It is profitable for correction.” Try it, man!

FRAGMENTS OF THOUGHT. Most of us are looking for great ways in which to exercise our activities, for great fields in which to work. In the sweep of eager eyes over the range of interest before us, we miss, in many instances, the little fields that lie close at hand—the. dear, simple duty of making happy one or more human beings. To be kind and considerate and generous with those we love is no work of merit—it is too easy. But to choose, and help some lonely individual who needs sympathy, companionships, and encouragement—that is well worth while. Why not decide to look about your circle and select some boy or girl, some-man or women, in need of such help? Then offer it tactfully, delicately, but persistently. The effort will not always succeed, the object will not always be worthy, but the result will add to the sum of human happiness. The strong believers' are the great doers. The mightier the faith the greater the action that will flow from it. If men do not believe in the possibility of triumph, .they will not fight for it. “Only so far as a man believes strongly,” said Robertson of Brighton, “can he act cheerfully or do* anything that is worth doing.” “The Kingdom of God is within you” —it must bo before it eau be anywhere else. When, after a missionary convention, earnest and enthusiastic, the members were asked to consider, each one, what she -would do personally to further the -Kingdom, a quavering old voice replied: “I’ve been thinking, while I listened, that I’d do my best to get it along as far as our house.” Heads turned wonderingly, and there were smiles at the simplicity of the plain old woman who had strayed into the meeting. But she was right. Bringing it as far as, and into our own homes and into our own lives is one sure way of hastening the coming of Christ’s Kingdom.

Henry Ward Beecher once said: “It is not what we read, but what we remember, that makes us learned. It is not what we intend, but what we do, that makes us useful. It is not a few faint wishes, but a lifelong struggle that makes us valiant.” Each lesson

mastered makes the next one clearer, each good intention acted upon makes decisive action easier for us, each de termined stniggle adds to our courage and strength. The truo plain path is well doing. Not brilliant doing, but well doing. Doing the work of life with a willing mind, a loving heart, with both hands, earnestly —diligence in getting good, being good, doing good. In this world, all the grand prizes go to a few brilliant people. But what a blessing it is for us, the dim million, to know that God recognises patient merit, and that the grandest prizes of all are kept for the faithful.