QUIET HOUR

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 5 March 1927, Page 18

QUIET HOUR

|. ' REFLECTIONS. u The stars proclaim the majesty of God, Those matchless gems—Divine regalia, Whose ordered courses through the heavens display The Wisdom Infinite, o’erruling all. And when around on this fair world we y gaze, * In signs so unmistakable we trace The self-same order—‘telling us of God. t The spring-time, with its fresh young i life renewed, A The summer with that life more perfeet grown, ? The autumn with its glorious tints which tell T Of full maturity. Then winter’s robe Of spotless fairness. All in order move j ’Neath the wise rule of .God. P . —P. D. van der Swan. f WHOLE-HEARTEDNESS. (By Dr. George H. Morrison, Glasgow.) p “In every work . . Hezekiah , did it with all his heart, and prosi pered.”—2 Chron. xxxi. 21. s Hezekiah was one of the best kings . who ever sat upon the throne of Judah, , and here, as through an open window, f we catch a glimpse of the secret of it i all. Other kings had reverenced a Jehovah. They, had done something to s restore His worship. They had not r broken with idolatry; but neither had 1 they broken with the Lord. But Heze--3 kiah would have no concessions; with r him it must be everything or nothing; 1 all lie did he did with his whole heart. Nothing is said of his intellectual emin- , once. It is not recorded that ho was a t genius. The one fact that stood out - bright and shining was that Hezekiah 7 was a whole-hearted man. And then r the Bible, in that quiet way it has when y telling something of tremendous mo ment, adds that being a whole-hearted man he prospered. So we are taught here that old and vital truth that whole-heartedness is the condition of prosperity. It is a truth that the youngest needs to learn, and that the oldest cannot afford to overlook. Some time ago two men were talking about another who had failed in business. They were discussing the causes of his failure. And one said, “I don’t wonder that he failed; why, the man put nothing in the business; he did not even put himself in it. ’ ’ He had never put himself into the business; he had never acted as Hezekiah did. With unswerving energy of i heart and will he had never come to it t and grappled with it. And if you and ' I could only read the long story of 1 human failure I think we should find }■ it ’was generally so. I should be the 'last man to disparage intellect. Brains * tell, and will tell to the end. There j 1 arc many tasks that never could be done without a high endowment of intelligence. None the less, I am con- ) vinced of this, that for once men fail in things through lack of brains, * twenty times they fail through lack of 5 heart. Hezekiah wrought with all his : heart and prospered; his was a national work of reformation. And yours? Yours may be the lowliest of tasks, in the kitchen, in the office, in the shop. No matter, give yourself wholly to it; determine it shall be done consummately,. and the issues shall be larger than you dream. , Something of all this was in Paul’s mind when he wrote that text which immediately suggests itself. • “Whatsoever you do,” says the apostle, “do it heartily as to the Lord.” Had Paul been writing in some quiet academy I do not think he would have worded it like that. He would have said, “Do it heartily, for that is the way to nobility of character.” But Paul was always thinking about Christ; for him prosperity was Christ; and so he says, “My children, do it. heartily; it is the only road to fellowship with Him.” Talk of the gentle Saviour as you will, there is only one thing of which I am profoundly certain. It is that no slacker and no shirker can ever hope to have fellowship with Him. For Jesus was the most whole-hearted toiler who ever laboured in any human ministry, and to be like Him you must know Him as He is. All that 'He did He did with all His heart; His meat'was to do the will of Him who sent Him. He never faltered once; never regretted; never listened to any calling voices.- And though -the end was Gethsemanc and Calvary, and the pierced hands and untimely grave,

He prospered with the prosperity of heaven. The pity of half-hearted work is just that it misses the gladness of it all To he half-hearted is to be half-happy. There is no portrait of Hezekiah anywhere; no one has told us what his face was like. And yet I think had 3 met him in Jerusalem I should have recognised him easily. When a man is doing his bit with all his heart you can generally tell it as the years go on; his face shines although he wist it not. Half-hearted, the hours have leaden feet. We are irritable and easily provoked. There is music everywhere in thiis strange universe, hut the halfhearted man hears none of it. And. I cannot help thinking that much of that heavenly music which was ringing always in the ears of Christ was due to His splendid absorption in His calling. "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me.” “I must work the works of Him that sent Me.” By day and night, in prayer and word and healing, all that Ho did He did with His whole heart. And then gradually as the years went on the man of sorrows became a man of joy, filled with a peace that passeth understanding. There is one other point I notice in our text and to which I desire to call attention. It is that word everything—in everything ho did Hezekiah wrought with his -whole heart. There were certain branches of that reforming work which would be more congenial to the king than others. Doubtless he had his likings and dislikings, his special aptitudes, his favourite subjects. But the fine thing, the really heroic thing, the conquering thing about the man was this, that be wrought with his whole heart in everything. In other words, he trampled down his likings. He went, to his duties over the neck of them. With full energy of heart and soul he grappled with the very task he hated. And no man will ever come to anything, or prosper with any real prosperity, who has not mastered Hezelmah’s secret. Arc you a nurse? Arc you a doctor? Are you a minister? Are you a servant. There are certain things you like to do. There are certain things you loathe to do. My reader, there is no other way to an approving conscience and a noble character than to do every separate thing with a whole heart. We owe far more to our unwelcome duties than we shall ever know till secrets are revealed. Things that we think we cannot do at all arc often the .things which do the most for us. The very effort, the quiet, dogged effort, to do what is uncongenial and distasteful is the way to the place where all the singing is.

PRAYER. Almighty God, Who hast promised to be with Thy people and to grant their