QUIET HOUR

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 23 January 1926, Page 14

QUIET HOUR

WHAT IS RIGHT' WITH THE CHURCHES?

(Bv Rev. C. Irving Benson). We have grown so accustomed to the stock questions: “Have the Churches laied ami “What is Wrong, with the Chili i lies?” that we should really miss them if tiny languished into silence, jns tide is surely turning, and the enurehes w ill soon find themselves iinperi Teel by flattery. Dr. Charles F. Macfarland lias a vigorous article in tiie Success Magazine. which lands soiu e home-thrusts on the Church critics.

“No other institution, political, economic or industrial, lias surveyed its task at this moment of the world’s need so undauntedly as the Church. It js just because of its new idealism that the Church, in its practical realisation of its accepted responsibility, seems to have waned, and it sheds its own light upon its own conscience. The Main tiling is this —its face is toward the light,” writes Dr. Macfarland.

“Another sign' of hope is the unquenchable fundamental faith of people in the Church, evinced often-times by their most searching criticism. There is an aroused and increased interest organised religion as a structural element in democracy. Men are turning to it in an hour of the world’s tragedy and need. Aiost noticeable has been this return to the Church by men cf business. Indeed, the laymen, on the whole, appear lo have even a deeper concern than the clergy. It is infillitev more than a revival of personal religion, although it wid mean little unless it becomes that also.” “What, then, is th e matter with our churches? The matter is not so that they have lost in their power and tliei.r resources during the past decade or two, hut that thev have been witness-

ig and attempting to perform a mission infinitely greater than their fathers ever dreamed of—an infinitely greater task than that of saving their souls. The Church pursues an everfving goal, and the very consciousness of its distance is an evidence that the Church is pursuing it. When the Church ceases to. be the subject of criticism, it will not be because it has fulfilled its ideal, but because it has permitted men to lose sight of it. The most searching critics are not those outside the Church, but those, within it. That is the hopeful thing. May the day never come when the Church is satified with itself, or when the oeople are satisfied with the Church. Meanwhile thoughtless men and women have failed to see that in their criticism the very institutions of human life, which they have often contrasted with the Church to the disadvantage of the Church, are merely the great overflowing stream of which it is the source. Let us cease for the moment our glib repetition of the phase _“\Yhat is the matter with our Churches?” and let us substitute for it the more important question : “What is the matter with ourselves?”

GOAI MON TH I N'GS. “he things I prize of greatest worth Are just the common things of earth; fie rain, the sun, the grass, the trees; The flowers, the birds, the glorious breeze ; Clouds that pass, and stars that shine, Mountains, valleys, all are mine; Rivers .broad, and open sea re riches none can take from me. O God is here on ev’ry hand. .Jpon the sea, upon the land! And day by day my thanks I give That with these common things 1 live. • —Leonard G. Nattkeeper. THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. Prayer is infinitely more than speech with God. Lb is giving God the opportunity to speak to us. it is openhearted ness to God. It is conscious receptiveness in the presence of the Divine. When Jesus prayed He opened Himself to God, the Infinite, and the Infinite began to possess. Him. Thus it was that Ho “experienced the release of the soul, from the things which weighed it down and filled ib with a sense of sorrow.” Jesus, upon the mountain height, in the evening time, prayed. It is al| so very natural. Dr. Cover thinks that this was probably no new habit-, induced by .the crowded days of His ministry, ? i;t an old way of His from youth. The full house l would prompt it, apart from whaf, He found in the open. Was it in such hours He learnt His deepest, e.os'ins from the mountain slopes, under be open sky, did the stars never speak to Him as. to the Hebrew Psalmist f 'When 1 consider Thy ' heavens, the work of Thy figures, the moon and the stars which Thou hast ordained, what is man that 'Thou art mindful of him?’’ Once He said: ‘‘The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou licarest the sound thereof, hut const not tell whence it coincth, or whither it goetli.” May we not believe that He had listened to the sigh of the evening breeze and caught something? .Inderd, there are many utterances of our Lord which, we may safely take as indications of His communion with God in nature. “Ho went up into a mountain apart to irav.” Surely, a hint of old expert '.•■nee. even of a habit.

'I he ag,> in which we live is not congenial to meditation. 'This is the day af strenuous life. Rush and hustle have become the mood and temper of our time. There ar e so many calls to whieh we must respond, so- many ■laims we eannol set aside, perhaps so many services and meetings. There is no time for the refreshment and culture of the soul. We have exiled our •sou’s from I lie mount of meditation. Fab r says; ‘•There is a seeming dignify about having too many things to lo which to the eye of the world, envelops ns in an appearance of repose. We seem to he marching through life. '■ l :le «' are really tearing through ’ike a planet goL loose in .space.” We ne d 1.0 remind ourselves that, • ! >e seir may lie verv barrel), while the hands ip' busy. The haste that crowds out dme for private meditation is perilous.

‘The world i.s too much with us: late or soon. Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers. Little we see in nature that is ours, \\ :■ give our souls away, a sordid hoop.” —The Methodist Glint chinnn.