DEVOTIONAL COLUMN

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIV, Issue 1179, 29 November 1924, Page 9

DEVOTIONAL COLUMN

PRAYER. O Lord v.c confess that we have been unworthy of the least of all Thy mercies and loving kindnesses, and we pray Thee to help us, prizing them all, to prize tho best most, and to covet earnestly the/highest gilts which meet our deepest needs and satisfy our largest longings. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. —Amen. READING. “My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for over.” —Psalm lxxiii. 24-26. WORK FOR A GOD. To make some nook of God’s creation a little fruitfuller, belter, more worthy of God; to make some human hearts a little wiser, inanfiiller, happier, more blessed, less accursed. It is work for a god.— Thomas Carlyle. IS THERE ANYTHING NEW? “Is there anything of which it can be said, Lo this is new? It has been already of old time which was before us. —Eocles, i„ 10. There is no new thing under this old sun ; The things that vve do once others have done. The thing that hath been is that which shall be. What others have seen that also we see. The truths that we teach once others have taught. The thoughts that wc reach once others have thought. There is one new thing will not. pass away. Each morning doth bring new mercies each day. New purdon for sin, new hope heaven lo will, A new heart within, a new life to begin. And when old tilings past we reach heaven at hist, A new life we’ll live, a new name receive; Heaven’s arches will ring with the new song we sing; This tiling Christ wilt do —He’ll make all things now. SACRIFICIAL BLOOD COD’S LOUD SPEAKER. A North American Indian once said, when asked how his tribe came lo Umsi : A preacher once came to our tribe and began to prove to us that there was a God. We replied, “Do you think that we are ignorant that there is a God? Go back from whence you came.” Another preacher came and he said, “You must not lie, you must- not steal” ; and wo said, “Do you think that we are ignorant of that? Go back and provo that you do not lie or steal.” Sometime after this Christian Henry, a Moravian, came and ho said, “I come in the Name of the Lord of . Heaven and earth. He acquaints you that He would gladly save you and rescue you from all the miserable state into which sin has brought you. To this ond, God became man, died on the Cross for us alt and shed His Blood for you.” He then laid down on a board in my hut and fell asleep being very tired with his journey. I said. “What manner of man is this?” I might have killed him at once and thrown his body into the forest-, and who would have known? But I could not shake off his words; and when 1 too slept. 1 dreamed of the Blood shed for humankind. So our great awakening came. The Sacrificial Blood of Christ is God’s loud speaker. The true evangelist does not have to prove the existence of God or the fact of sin. He is to publish the good news of salvation from sin. PAUSING AT THE BLACKSMITH SHOP. There is the same familiar scene at- a blacksmith shop as when you were a child. No child could pass the door of that shop. It held a fascination of its own. Modernism and mechanism are rapidly removing ihe smithy and his forgo and lire are not frequently seen, nor the ring of the anvil so frequently heard, but the poet still tells the true story. Last night I paused beside a blacksmith’s door. And heard tho anvil ring the vesper chime ; Then looking in, I saw upon the floor Old hammers worn with beating years of time. “How many anvils have you had,” said I, “To wear and hatter all these hammers so ?” “Just one,” said he, and then with twinkling eye, “The anvil wears tile hammers out you know.” “And so,” 1 thought, “the anvil of God’s Word, For ages skeptic blows have boat upon ; Yet, though the noise of telling blows was heard. The anvil is unharmed, the hammer’s gone.” Whatever else may change, the Word of God remains. Like the. Living.. Word, so also the Written Word —.- “Thou art the same, Thy years shall not fail.” Men may bring to destruction and decay all else, but never the Word of God. There arc no human hammers ever forged that can wear out the Anvil of God’s- Word. They fall arid fail and find the junk pile of human folly, but the Word of God remains. The Word of God will grind men to powder but sum cannot grind the Word of God to powder. Brndlaugh is gone, Voltaire is gone. Ingersol is gone, nnd soon all who speak against the Holy Book will be gone but tho Word of God liveth and abideth for ever ! TITHING IN AMERICA. EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS IN CHURCH LIFE. Dr. Parker once said: “If I were a constructor of Congregational churches I would never allow any mail to become a church member until lie pledged himself to give one-tenth of his income to Christ.” This principle, though without tile clement of • compulsion, has been widelyadopted in many . denominations in America and has played a large part ill producing that wonderful outflow of liberality for religious purposes which has marked the recent life of the American churches. The spread of the tithing movement is mainly due to the single-hearted and single-handed devotion of a Presbyterian business man. Nearly fifty years ago Mr Thomas E. Kano, a school furniture manufacturer, of Evanston, constituted himself u missioner of the tithe. From 1876 to the present time he has written under the pen-name of “Layman” scores of leaflets, and . circulated millions of copies at his own expense among ministers and church officials.

The principle insisted upon . throughout these pamplots is that every Christian owes a tenth of his income to God. Only after that debt has been discharged is he entitled to talk about “giving.” In a leaflet issued as long ago as 1878 Mr Kane made this challenge: “It is my personel belief that God prospers in temporal affairs those who honour Him by setting apart a definite proportion of their , income to His service. I have never known an exception. Have you ?” That challenge has been prominently repeated in every issue of this paniplet, which has circulated among millions of people. Tho reported exceptions can be counted on the lingers of two hands. The results of “Layman’s” propaganda are remarkable. Between 1917 and 1921 half a million pamphlets were circulated by Mr lvano among the members of the Presbyterian Church of America. To illustrate the effect of this work the following statistics of the contributions of 250 of these churches to home and foreign missions may be adduced. In 1919 tho total sum given for these objects was £61,425. In 1920 it rose to £109,932, and in 1921 to £141,185 —an increase in two years of nearly £BO,OOO. For its New Era Campaign the South-

ern Presbvtc’i'inn -'Church made its goal for 1919-20 a sum of £700,000. Tithing literature' -Was distributed on a large scale, with the result that- ihe actual contributions amounted . In £860,000, exceeding the amount aimed at by £160,000. In Washington D.C.- there -is a Baptist Sunday school flask," with' an attendance of 400 business girls, who earn an average salary of '£24o a year. In response to a tithing campaign 200 became tithers, with the result that .the annual amount raised by the class - for religious purposes is £2BOO-a - year.. The girls entirely support a missionary', among the Italians in Philadelphia; they contribute over £2OO to the central . foreign misionary fund, and, they give liberally to the i support of their local church.