THE QUIET HOUR

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 26 August 1933, Page 2

THE QUIET HOUR

(Contributed for the Hawera Ministers’ Association.) By Rev. Basil Metson CHUROI=GOING RELIGION True religion goes to church. It goes because it loves to go, loves to meet God’s people, loves to think o.u high and holy things, loves to hear the Good News, loves to praise God from Whom all blessings flow. It is not hard to find the reason for many a person’s indifference to liis church. He is bored by sermons, put to sleep by anthems, irritated by soul-stirring religion. He has lost his appetite for these things. He sings with Cewper: ‘Where is the blessedness I knew When first 1 saw the Lord Where is the soul-refreshing view Of Jesus and His Word?” Appetite lost? Of course, for he had

a jaded palate before ever the church bell rang. No human being could keep his appetite for genuinely religious things after feeding all the week on cheap magazines, sensational stories, profane plays, exciting card parties and exhausting dances prolonged into the early hours. The overwhelming satiety of such things is often the reason why lie yawns, “I don’t feel like church this morning.” Of course Christianity and church-going are not synonymous, but nevertheless they are inseparably connected. I have never known a truly gracious Christian character, but what its owner loved the House of God. Church-going is an essential part of true religion, always has been and. always will be. Neglect of the services of the church is a mark of spirtual decline. jVIy reasons for thinking so

ai First.—Jesus was a persistent and habitual churchgoer. Second.—Jesus. Himself promised to be present wherever the saints if only two or three should meet in His name. Third. —There are benefits to be had from church-going which can be had in no other way (list oil request if you cannot think of them for yourself). ~ , Fourth. —--The same holds true of benefits to he rendered, neighbours to be encouraged', strangers to be served, the larger interests of the Kingdom of God to he aided. No small privileges these. Fifth.—Mr Stay-at-Home and his family (the sliut-ins are excepted) plainly lack in genuine spiritual life and interests. Their Bibles are apt to. be dust-covered and ignored, their prayers perfunctory if presented _ at all/ and the abiding joy of Christ’s presence a forgotten experience. There is a direct connection between this state and their absence from the House of God. Mr Stay-at-Home, have you lost your appetite for spiritual things ? What is the reason ? You know at- the bottom of your heart it is not the preaching,’ the choir, the pew, the flowers, those who attend church, or more important matters; you neglect church because of worldliness pure and simple. Now, why not start the churcli-going habit on Sunday next? Like Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, you have a plant called “reverence” which requires to be watered and cultivated. “I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the House of the Lord.”

THE LOST KEY. It is much to ho feared that very many people have lost the key to the door of prayer, that place where men go to talk alone with God and to listen to Him. And here lies one of the strongest tests of a man’s life and religion. Take out your key-ring, my friend, and look it over. There is the key to your front door, worn and .shiny; you use it daily. And the key to the office or shop, bright with constant usage. And the key to the casli-hox in the safe? Just like the others. There is the key to the tool-cliest that used to be your hobby before you became so busy with other and lesser things—look at it now : a rusty brown. Your key-ring is an index to your life; and the key to the place where you used to go apart with God to think on high and holy things—take a good look at it. Its condition will be a true index to your spiritual condition. How does it look? Rusty, or worn and clean shining? ‘What? Not there? You’ve lost it? You really mean that you have in your day no moment when you are alone with your Heavenly Father ? Where has the key gone? Down the well of knowledge, so-called? Thrown into the sea of pleasure? Forgotten in the whirlpool of business? Where is it? And how, how do you expect to go on living without it. A man with a sick wife said to mo the other day: “A man might just as well be dead if lie cannot pray.” Friend, if that key is gone, you’d better get it back without delay. Shine it up with hard usage. If it grows bright I know what your life will be: a life of contentment and peace, of faith and hope, the best sort of life possible to you. I am confident that some of the crows’ feet will disappear from your face, many of the chronic anxieties will vanish utterly, and the “silenced birds of your life” will sing their cheerful songs. Remember the wise words of Tennyson in “Morte D’arthur” : 1

“More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. Therefore, let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain. If knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friends ? For so the whole round earth is every way Bound l»v gold chains about the feet of God.”

A NOBLE PRAYER. FDR, TO-DAY, BY R.L.S.

Pni-go out of every heart the lurking grudge. Give us grace and .strength to forbear and to persevere. Offenders, give us the grace to accept and forgive offenders. Forgetful ourselves, help us to bear cheerfully the forgetfulness of others. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare us to our friends, . soften ius- to our enemies. Bless us if it may be in all our innocent endeavours. If it may bo not, give us strength to encounter that which is to come, that we lie brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune, and down to the gates of death loyal and loving to one another.