FESTIVAL OF SPRING

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 249, 18 September 1933, Page 4

FESTIVAL OF SPRING

CUBA STREET CHURCH. There were large congregations at the Cuba Street AleUiodist Church yesterday when a spring festival was celebrated —an innovation introduced bv Rev. H. L. Richards, who adopted I this special kind of service when in I the. north. The church had been very tastefully arranged with spring j flowers, bulbs, which were the prel dominating blooms, harmonising to a splendid degree with other seasonal foliage. The entire front portion oi the building had been transformed and around the pulpit and the pipe organ the profusion of l)loOi*s it as most refreshing. 1 On each .occasion music specially appropriate was sung anti the entire services were conducted so as to obtain a unity of 1 thought and purpose. . In the morning the meditation was based on the text found in the Song of Solomon, 2, 11-12; “For, 10, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of tho singing of birds is come. . . ” ATr Richards said he believed spring was the season of the greatest altection. It meant 'that the winter with all its elements was doomed and 'it was a sign “not to quit.” Nothing lasted the whole time and we must not lose faith. In' life we had the winter as much as the plants, which needed it before they conhl obtain the spring. “Everybody must needs go through this winter for somehow it does us good. This is because I believe not in a God of caprice that ru’es over ns and a power over us. We all have to endure the wilderness periods of life, otherwise we could not obtain the rich, the the beautiful- and strong, the worthwhile things,” said Mr Richards. Then it was that “all things work together for good to them that lo\ r e God.” In the last analysis this was true. The flowers would not be so beautiful in colour and tone if it were not for the rain and snow and the tlmnderings and lightning flashes of the winter. “AVe could not get the beauty of the spring without the rigours of the winter,” added the preacher. The evening text was. entitled “The Voice in a Garden,” from the Song of Solomon, 8, 13 (adapted): “God that dwellest in the Gardens.” Alany were the messages to be learned by those who heard and saw the things hidden from the casual person, Air Richards said. There were three chief ones. The first was the amazing artistry of God, for He wrought with consummate skill, and marvellous were the plants that bore His handiwork’s nia.rks, those of finish and effect. This should help to bring out the best in our worship, for nothing tawdry, or coarse or rough 1 was thus befitting The prodigality of | God was shown in His wide and gen-1 erous giving. If man was so blind, i wilful or stupid tljat he did not see j how to use and develop the capacities j of appreciation the blame was on him- j self. If there was hardship it was not; because of Mother Earth, but because at the vital centres of corporate life there was human greed, selfishness and unbrotherliness, which interfered to the detriment of man. The third : point brought out was that God had so ordered things as to permit us to j join in with Him to produce better j orders of things. He did it not because He needed man so much as that He thus enabled man to grow thereby. 1 The more we knew of Nature the more J we knew of Nature’s God. Wo would i thus live broader and deeper lives. It J was all done that man might rise to | higher things. I At the conclusion of the evening service the flowers were in part distributed so that those who were not able to attend might share in the experience of the celebrations, and the remainder were set aside to be sent to the hospitals. 1