DEVOTIONAL COLUMN.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 24 May 1930, Page 7

DEVOTIONAL COLUMN.

PRECEPT. Thou shalt brig forth all the tithe of thine increase. A —Duet, xiv, 28. PROMISE. The Lord shall increase you more and more. —Psalm, cxv, 14. PRAISE Blessed be the Lord, that hath given. I —l Kings viii, 56. FOLLOWING IN HIS STEPS. We are to follow, the steps of His most blessed life. This is the sum total of all Christian duty, and the assurance of the maximum of Christian effluence and influence. This is our compendium of direction, the summary of all injunction and all restraint. "Take His way of life, do the things tlidt He did, and do them as He did them." —Dr. Stuart Holden. If you consecrate your cross to the Lord Jesus. He will use it. and He will make it one of your best friends. He Will make it to you, as He did to Samuel Rutherford, "wings." He will use -the "way you boar your cross to cheer others who are staggering despairingly under their crosses. —-Dr. Charles Inwood. . (Both at Keswick Convention.) HARVEST. 'in Cairo I secured a few grains of wheat that had slumbered for more than three {thousand years in an Egyption tomb. As I looked at them this thought came into my mind: If one of those grains had been planted upon the banks of the Nile the year after it grew, and all its lineal descendants planted and replanted from them until now, its progeny to-day would be sufficient to feed the teeming millions of the world. There is, in the grain of wheat an invisible something, which has power to discard the body that we see, and from earth and air fashion a new body so much like the old one that we cannot tell the one from the other; and if this invisible germ of life in the grain of wheat can thus pass unimpaired through three thousand resurrections, I shall not doubt that my soul has power to clothe itself with a new body suited to its new existence when this earthly frame has crumbled into "dust. —W. J. Bryan. LOVE. In 1, Corinthians, xiii. love, tho greatest attribute of the Divine Nature, ia seen, not at home in heaven, but coming out on earth, Jike some rare exotic, brought from the tropics, unfolding its beauties amid uncongenial surroundings If my stature for God be according to the measure in which I am formed in the Divine Nature, and without it I am nothing, let me test myself by 1 Corinthians, xiii, 4-8, and where "charity" (love) stands, read '"l." I Suffer, long, and am kind. Envy not. Vaunt not myself. Am not puffed up. Do not behave myself unseemly. Seek, not my &wn. . Am hot easily provoked. Think no evil. Rejoice not in iniquity, but Bejoice in the truth. Bear all things, Believe all things, Hdpe all things, Endure all things. How far has one travelled on this road? COULD YE NOT WATCH WITH ME ONE HOUR? I wonder how many Christians ever really .take the burden of man's sin upon their prayers, and thus at least watch ; and brood, even if thqy can do no more. I wonder how often we read the newspaper reports of police and other cases with morbid interest, but with hardly a stir of atoning desire, hardly a thought of the Divine heart of suffering within the shadows. —Herbert H. Farmer. SERVING HIM ALONE. Not outward sphere, but inward heart, The Love wherewith we do our part; Not how large gifts we hold in trust, But how far tused, or left to rust. Not how much done, but how well done, Faithful to many souls, or one; Seeking the Master's will to find, And lean on Him with peace of mind. Content to fail in human eyes, His smile the one regard we prize. In any sphere, serve Him alone, Till cross is left for crown and throne. PASTOR PAUL. Paul was a traveller; far to the west braving the perils of sea and of land, steadily, fervently, onwards he pressed, telling glad tidings. at Jesus' command. Paul was a writer of beauty and skill, deepest of insight, fullest of power, wise to interpret God's wonderful will, swift for the need of the day and the hour. Paul was an orator vivid and strong, mighty in argument, gracious and kind, maker of sentences ' sweet as a song, winning the hearts ' and the soul and the mind. Paul was a herald of love and of light, founder of churcheß and master of men, chief of apostles in wisdom and might, stricken and rising and fighting again. Paul was a pastor. With all of the rest, tenderly leading the young and the old, feeding, and guarding, and seeking their best, joy of the pasture and joy of the fold. Never he stinted his labour and prayers, weeping and comforting, warning and stern, heeding a shepherd's most intimate cares — ah, how his messages tremble and yearn! Preacher and leader and hero and saint, manifold, glorious, masterful Paul, portrait, impossible ever to paint—yet as a pastor most blessed of all