DEVOTIONAL COLUMN.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 11 June 1932, Page 6

DEVOTIONAL COLUMN.

Help us, O Lord, to be ready whenever thou shalt see that we have finished our earthly discipline, and shalt send for us! May wo hear Thee say that wo have been faithful, and may we in thy glorious service find an ever-increasing joy! THE TRANSFORMING IMAGE. A beautiful statue stood in the mar-ket-place of an Italian city. It represented a. Grecian maiden of graceful form, beautiful face and noble expression. One day mi unkempt, slovenly girl came face to lace with the statue. She gazed at it in wonder and admiration. It stirred long-dormant instincts within her. “I can be like that,” she said to herself, “something within tells me so.” She went home and washed her face and combed her tangled locks. Next day she went to the market place and gazed long at the statue, and then went home and washed and mended hci tattered garments. Thereafter day after day she went to look upon the figure of the Grecian maiden, mid day by day she changed- iShc straightened her shoulders, her form became graceful, her face gi'ow radiant and refined, till by and by she was transformed into a likeness .of the statue. It is thus, says St. Paul, that we may be transformed into the Likeness of Christ. The Evangel is the mirror in, which we behold His glory, and as avc gaze upon this from day to day, avo are transformed. “THE DAY IS AT HAND.” The night is far spent, the Day is at hand . . • let us put on the armour of light.”—Rom. xiii. 12. We humbly acknowledge that it is “not for us to know the times or the seasons Avhich the Father hath put in His OAvn poAver,” but Ave cannot avoid ,a groAving conviction that the ‘ ‘ coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” Indeed it may (be that He is “even at the doors.” What, then, should be our attitude?

Though in this passage only defensive armour is referred to, there are several others in which we read of offensive weapons. The child of God is a member of a 'Church Militant. When he sighs and acknowledges that the devil is meant, of inecessity, to have things all his own- way, and that evil must increase without effort to the contrary on his part, he has simply ceased to count jar th© Kingdom of God. Surely the definite teaching of the Word is that there must be a positive going forth against the enemy, both in prayer and ini effort. The Book of Revelation is full of the fighting spirit. A wellnknown clergyman once .said that he did not understand much about its symbolism, but he did at least understand three things in it: first, that there are two sides; second, that- one side always wins; and, third, that I am on the winning side! The Great Rider goes forth, and His armies follow, and of His enemies it is said, ‘ ‘ the Lamb .shall overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and they who accompany Him—called as they are, and chosen, and faithful —shall share in the victory! ” This is offensive warfare, and it ends in the final victory of the Son of God, crushing and complete.

“WE NEGLECT THE BIBLE AT OUR PERIL.”

Sir Thomas Inskip, KjO., M.P., for some years Solicitor-General in His Majesty’s Government, was just recently elevated to the Attorney-Gener-alship, the highest legal position in the United Kingdom. Six years ago this distinguished scholar and lawyer was chairman of the annual meeting of the British and Foreign Bible Society in London, and in the course of his speech on that occasion, he said; ‘“ The report of the Bible Society is crammed with facts, which bear witness to the unique power and character of this Book. Not a year passes but there are some to tell us that a few of its pages have been torn from it; and yet every year adds to the roll of its triumphs. It winds and wins its way into places are inaccessible to any human agent. It touches hearts that are insensible to every other appeal. It breaks the fetters of every caste and creed throughout the world, and it provides a universal language of inspiration and devotion in which the learned and unlearned of the world are able to express their worship to the God whom they adore. “This is not the time or place for me to notice or even appraise the scholarship and wealth of learning that have been lavished upon the Bible. But this at least I may say, it is in no danger of destruction as some timorous hearts may have felt, from the flood of criticism.

“‘ Sometimes I hear or road of great ■emphasis being laid upon the teaching of Jesus Christ, and in particular upon some part of it. Brotherhoods, and fellowships and conferences quite rightly make much of the claim of Jesus Christ to control every department of our social and political and industrial life; but I often look, and I sometimes think I look in vain, for a proper appreciation of the two greatest facts in the history of the human race with which the Bible is full, which, indeed, it is the purpose of the Bible to proclaim to the world. First, ■the fact that sin has entered in and marred the visage of man who wae made in God’s image; secondly, the fact that Jesus Christ came to be not merely a leader, but a great deal more than that—He came to be the Saviour of the world. Who died, the godly for the ungodly, while we were yet sinners.

‘‘lf those 'stupendous facts are f o be found elsewhere than in the Bible we could perhaps dispense with the Bible, or, if they are not facts, we ought to dispense with the Bible because they are the sum total of the message of the Bible. But if they are facts, and if they are only stated in their true proportion in this Book, then we neglect the Bible at our peril. It is. not enough to put it upon our tables

or in our libraries. It is the chart and compass without which the path of any man of any nation is a perilous and disastrous adventure. It is a sword without which the powers of darkness cannot be fought and defeated, and ■it is not enough to distribute ten and a half million of the Scriptures, though that is good; we must not be content until once more this Book is the Book of our people and those people are the people of the Book. “We are told that every great movement in India at the present time for the reform of religions is at bottom inspired by some Christian philosophy. But we want more than We want not merely the traditions and spirit of Christianity to be the inspiration of indigenous religious movements but wo want Jesus Christ as Saviour to be crowned and acknowledged by tliose great races. The only means b.v which this can be done is by the steady spread and study of the Scriptures from beginning .to end. The fact is that the free and wide circulation of the* Bible is an indispensable condition- of purity of religious thought. It is the inveterate habit of the human race, if it has to devise its own religious systems, to err; and the collection of the Bible as the inspired Word of God is required to correct what vi be the inevitable deflection from the truth if we leave them to then oun devices.” ..