Sunday Column.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 3 August 1912, Page 4

Sunday Column.

WHAT 18 IT THAI' SAVES MEN?

(By 11. J. Campbell. M.A.)

That which saves is the birth of Christ, the divine word in the soul of the believer, delivering from the dominion of evil, granting 'assurance of the forgiveness of sin, breaking down the middle wall of partition between the sinning soul and God, replacing discord by harmony and tumult 'bv peace, calling forth the sense of the eternal in the mind and heart, and making it central for all one's interests and activities, and filling one's whole being with blessedness and joy. This is but a feeble way of expressing the change which takes place in the experience of everyone who has found salvation in Christ. T mgiht describo it in more glaring terms, but. T forbear; I am anxious not to go beyond what the normal spiritually man or woman feels and knows concerning this allimportant secret of the religious Tife as specially associated with the name of our Lord and Savour. Jesus Christ. The Sense of Sin. Wo are compelled to recognise that (hero is in the world to-day, as in all previous days, a wide spread craving for such a remedy for personal transgression as will clean the state, so to speak, and give the penitent wrong-door a fresh start in union with the Eternal God.

There is. too. a longing for a divine reinforcement of the will in the direction of righteousness, an infusioH of new life, ensuring victory over one's moral disabilities and the attainment of right relations with God. Tam sure this is deeply felt, and T am afraid that I for one have not laid as much stress on it as T ought. It is true that perhaps the majority of our fellow-country-men are not greatly troubled by it. that, as Sir Oliver Lodge snys, the average healthy-minded man at the present time is not worry in 2 about his sins, but is earnestly seolrine to know how he may most effectually do his duty in life. But for all that thole is indeed a sense of short-com-ing and wrong-doing in many, many people which is not sufficiently met bv saving: Do your duty, and stop thinking about yourself. Thy Tragedy of the Soul. Oi late 1 have come across a number of examples oi it in specially pathetic and distressing forms. If a man iias been serving the flesh ami the world madly and selfishly for year,-, and years, if he has been making wrecks of his opportunities and befouling habitually the inner sanctuary oi his being, there is something that needs to be done with him bolore he can begin to serve hi s day and generation in the Spirit of Christ. He in in a bad way. He has made his soul a habitation of do vis. and the question is how is he to get rid ol them? Moreover, there may be a good deal in his past the very remembrance of which is a horror to him once his conscience is awakened, and if nothing can be done to relieve him of the burden he cannot possibly ripe 'intil any new better life; lie would feell it completely out of character fori him even to try. There is such al thing as an entail of evil. A man', follows a certain course, and finds! himself committed for all time to that cause and its sequences without hope of escape. I know what I am talking about.' I'eisons have sometimes come to me with a confession of sinful deeds of" evil habits, which they view with shame and anguish, but know not how to got free ; they feel themselves cut off from God, and purity, and truth for ever and ever, because of what they have been and done. What is ono to tell them? Remember, 1 am not speaking of clean-living highthinking men and women—who, by the way, may also need the pardoning love, of God more than some of the mimagine—.but of people who know quite well, and are wretched and miserable because of the knowledge that they hare sinned flagrantly against the right. What is there that will meet their case?

The one Word. 1 only know one word, Christ. "Putting away all filthiness and o\ei'flowiug of wickedness, receive v ith meekness the inborn word, which is able to save your souls.'" I would say to every much repentant sinner. "There is therefore 110 condemnation to them which aro in Christ -Jesus, who walk not after the tle.sb, but after the spirit." "In Christ .Jesus have we access in one Spirit unto the Father." One cannot go too far—it is impossible to exaggerate the completeness of the •salvation thus offered. I would not hesitate to say to every poor sorrowlul heart thus burdened and oppressed by a consciousness of an evil record : - Your sin is as though you had never committed it: in Christ it is wiped right away; it is as though it wore not yours, but His; the entail is severed; you aro no longer chained to the corpse of tho past, you are free to rise into newness of life hand in hand with your Saviour and Lord. All is well, you aro justified by faith; nothing can bar you out from God and holiness: henceforth yon are not your own. yon aro the willing prisoner of Him whose service is perfect freedom; yours is the glorious liberty of the sons of God. As to tho consequences of sin, that is another matter; you cannot possibly trace, control, Two g lineas for four lines of poetry! Read Tonking's Linseoc 1 Emulsion intimation every saturlay amongst news items.

or remedy the mall; some of them you will certainly have to bear yourself, 'but never alone; they axe not vengeance, but mercy; they are no sign of God's vindictiveness, but if His discipline; the curse has been transformed into the Cross which you aro asked to bear for Him. i reniember years ago in this connection a striking passage from Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler's well-known book, " Concerning Isabel Carnaby." A lather and a son are conversing on the mystery of redemption, as the dialogue proceeds as follows: "The teaching of modern philosophy is that what is done is done, and what we have written we have written, and that there is no atonement for the deed once accomplished, and no washing out of the /iand-writing against us. But I have not so learnefl Christ." "Then do you 'believe that what is done can never be undone?" asked Paul. "Surely that is impossible." " 1 do not wish to prophesy smooth things," replied the father, "nor to sprinkle the way of life with rose water. .1 know that if a man breaks the laws of Nature he will be punished to the utmost, for there is no forgivenness in Nature. I know that if a man breaks the laws of society he will find neither remission nor mercy, for so learned Christ." "Then do you tielieve that if a man breaks the law of trod his transgression can ho taken away as though it had never been, for there is forgivenness with Thee that Thou inav'st bo feared." "It. is a grand Gospel that you preach, father, and seems almost too good to be true." "Nothing is too good to be true ; the | truth is the best of everything."

Mv Sinful Soul. I have thus far been speaking mainly of a special kind of need, the meed of the man or women who has been living a bud life and knows it. But this Gospel cannot be restricted to such. The rest of us need it too. How often have wo prayed tne prayer— " Oil for a man to rise in me, That the man I am might ceasc to be." I do not suppose that there is any true or right spirited niau in the world w ho does not feel more or less like this, when lie takes stock of himself and faithfully examines his heart, " What shall I do to be saved?" is still the question of questions for the soul that yearns towards God. Then " blessed bo the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again a lively hope.''—"Christian World Pulpit."