THE DAY OF REST.

Mataura Ensign, 21 May 1910, Page 7

THE DAY OF REST.

(Edited by Rev. T. Paulin.) THE SWEETEST LIVES. The sweetest lives are those to duty wed, Whose deeds, both great and small, Are close-knit strandsfpf an unbroken I thread, Whose love ennobles" all. The world may sound no trumpets, ring no bells, The.Book of Life the shining record tells. Thy love shall chant its own beatitudes After its own life-working. A child's kiss Set on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad; A poor man served by thee shall make thee rich; A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong; Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense Of service which thou renderest. PRAYER. 0 God, be merciful unto us sinners. Now we see what the Cross means; now we feel the need of the agony and the sacrifice —words we cannot interpret from the outside, but which come to us with infinite pathos when we feel what they were meant to signify. The Lord bless us, heal ,us, comfort us, and make our latter end brighter, grander than any day that has gone before. Then shall we feel the time, through the blessed Lord Jesus our Saviour, heighten itself into Eternity. Amen. • ——— Yet this one thing I learn to know, ' Each day more surely as I go, That doors are opened, ways are made, [ Burdens are lifted or are laid, By some great law unseen and still, ' "Not as I will." —Helen Hunt Jackson. ' Come ye yourselves apart and rest awhile, Weary, I know it, of the press and throng. Wipe from your brow the sweat and dust of toil, And in My quiet strength again be strong, Come ye aside from all the world holds dear, For converse which the world has never known, Alone with Me and with My Father here, With Me and with My Father not alon«. Never should Ave forget the close connection between character and service, between inward nobleness and outward philanthropy. We are not here to dream, or even to build up in grace and beauty our individual life; we are responsible, each in our own little way, for trying to leave this sad world happier, better than we found it. Our work must be done to-day. There may bs no to-morrow. The future is wholly in God's hands. Waste not talents nor strength in worry, in anxiety for the future. Leave God's work to Him, and faithfully and prayerfully perform the work assigned 'o you to-day. Whilst urging Christians to show a greater pride in their faith and the power of the Gospel of Christ to make men live worthily and well, Mr Russell held up Mahometans to thorn as examples. "Many years ago, when I lived in India and learned from the people of that great country just as much as I taught, one thing that recommended to me the Mahometans was their pride in their faith. They were proud of Allah, the mighty God, and Mahomet, his prophet. There is no doubt of the faith or the Mahometans. It is the iron in their blood." There is something even more important than knowledge and culture, than alertness, than all the gifts of th?' intellect and brain. It is holiness. It is the life redeemed from iniquity. It is the disposition, the conversation, the daily walk which adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour. No book could be written, no. human utterance made, however faultless in diction, that could convey the truth of the attainability and possible enjoyment and experience of the life of holiness, better than the sight of men and women who are citizens of the Heavenlies while they linger on the earthward side. Such visible and living testimony travels farther than the eloquence of the tongue and the sentiment of a book. It achieves more. Old and young alike fall under the indefinable spell of a white life. There is no law which is so effective as the law which is exhibited and embodied in a life illustrating the truth ' that it teaches, and illustrating it in a fashion which those who observe cannot either forget or escape ; that constitutes the employment of holiness, the application of its great truths, the truth as taught in Scripture, to every detail oi living, whether in home or marketplace, in all the perplexities and petty vexations of domestic duties, or the more complex and serious obligations of statescraft and tho business world. The consecration consists in a perfect putting off of your own will, your disposition, temper, desires, likes and dislikes, and a perfect putting on of Christ's will, Christ's disposition, temper, desires, likes and dislikes. In short, perfect consecration is a putting off self, and a putting on Christ; a giving up your'own will in all things, and receiving the will of Jesus instead. This may seem well-night impossible and very disagreeable to your unsanctified heart; but if you mean business for eternity, and will intelligently and inflinchingly look at this strait gate through which so few enter, and tell the Lord that you want to go through. that way, though it cost you your life, the Holy' Spirit will soon show you that it is-not only possible, but easy and delightful, to thus yield' yourself to God. —Colonel Brengle. THE YOKE AND THE COLLAR. Some people imagine that the yoke ■ referred to in the text -is an extra bur--1 den. On the contrary, it is an implement by which the old burden is made light. A yoke is not a burden for a