Devotional Column

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 7269, 23 September 1933, Page 5

Devotional Column

Precept. Ye have need of patience, that, aftor ye have done the will of G-od, ye might receive the promise. Heh. 10. 86. Promise For yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Heb. 10. 37. Praise. I will hope continually, and will yet praise Thee more and more. Pea. 71. 14. CONTENTMENT. "Bo content with such things as ye haye.” (Heb. xidi. 5.) I started out one morning In lane of Well Content, The birds were sweetly singing— Rejoicingly I went. But soon I came to cross roads, Called Envy, Fear, and Doubt; The birds all left off singing, I quietly turned about. And in tho hedge I noticed A wee Forget-me-not, Some Rosemary I gathered From near the self-same spot. Then once again I started Through lane of Well Content, And precious hours with Jesus, In it I thenceforth spent. I’ll keep my little posy, Whatever be my lot; Rosemary for remembrance, And He forgets me not. Maud Rose. We must look on prayer a a preordained from all eternity by God to be a law, a force in the world, as much as any other force in nature or in history. Prayer is a link in the wonderful chain fixed in God’s own love, on the one hand, and in man’s action on the other.

“COMFORT ONE ANOTHER’’ (1 Thess. 4:18.) You never can tell what good you may do. If you pass on some comfort just given to you. Thera are hearts sadly aching with hopes long deferred Whose load fight be lifted .by one cheering word. Have you just had a message which lightened your load? Then pass it to others you meet on life’s road. It costs scarce an effort to do here your part To help on a comrade; and cheer some lone heart. —Fairelio Thornton.

"FATHER WILL MEET ME.'* A small boy sat quietly on a seat of a train running between two of the Western cities in the United States. It was a hot, dusty day, very uncomfortable for travelling, and that particular ride was perhaps the most uninteresting day’s journey in the whole land. But the little fellow sat patiently watching the fields and fences hurrying by, until a motherly old lady, leaning forward, asked sympathetically, "Aren't you tired of the long ride, and tho dust and the heat?" The lad looked up brightly, and rplied with a smile, "Yes, ma’am, a little. But I don’t mind it much, because my father is going to meet me when I get to the end of it.’’

What a beautiful thought it is that when life seems wearisome and monotonous, as it sometimes does, we can look forward hopefully and trustingly, and like the lonely little lad, "not mind it much,” because our Father, too, will bo waiting to meet us at our journey’s endl Father will meet us at the end of the journey, thank God I

"And the glory of the Lord shall be rovealed, and all flesh shall see it together”:—"shall see tho salvation of God.”

Yes, if tho glory of God is first revealed, in us, sweeping away the lowlevel life, the petty inconsistencies and self-esteem, the miserable shortcomings and repulsive weaknesses which drive away tho very souls we pray and seek to win, then Hi 3 glory will be revealed through us: "many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.” And then the King Himself shall return in His own glory, it will be seen undimmed by those painful blurrings of it which havo to often spoiled our reflection of it as His mirrors to the world. And we, too, shall be "like Him” then, with tho shortcomings once and for all purged away. He Himself, surely, will then complete that work of levelling, straightening, and smoothing, which seems so utterly beyond our adequate accomplishment in this dispensation. Mighty wrongs will then be righted: fountains of difficulty will be levelled! He will raise the crushed cause of Tight; in place of a world devastated by cruelty and broken faith, He will give a paradise of smooth and level pastures to His flock, and of straight paths to their feet. ‘ ‘They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on thorn, nor any heat.” The Lamb will "be their Shepherd”; and "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” Yes; in His infinite compassion, in His generous recognition, He will give His servants credit, and even reward, for their efforts in "preparing His way,” which, with all their failings, will be proved not to have boon bo negligible after all, so far as they were done in humble and solo reliance on the power of His Spirit,