THE SABBATH HOUR

Northern Advocate, 7 September 1935, Page 6

THE SABBATH HOUR

TEXT FOR TODAY.

our defence:. My defence is of Ggd, Who saveth the upright in heart.—Psalms 7:10. FATHERING THE HELPLESS. Sermon preached by the? Rev. C. Cannell Hoskin in Trinity Congregational Church, Whangarei, Text: “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are. dust.” — Psalm GUI, 13-14.

What a wealth of comforting thought this text contains. Just as the dawn, with its wealth of colour, is a promise of the coming i of the Sun with light and warmth, so is our text. The Old Testament is a promise. It contains its own wondrous beauty and .glorious truths, but it points to something better coming.

We see the promise of the great truth of the Fatherhood of God, as taught by Jesus. We learn that, in the face of the sinfulness of man, God is irresistibly drawn to him; there are certain things in us that draw forth God’s pity. I.—Our weakness draws forth God’s pity. God is likened' to a kindly Father who knows His children’s weaknesses, but, in knowing, understands and wants to help us to higher and better things. In one/ of his stories, Joseph Conrad likens God to “an immense, potent* and invisible hand thrust into the antheap of the earth.” How terrible . . . if true. But it is not true! God handles us very gently and lovingly, even though our very sin would make others throw us off.

Samuel Pepys tells us how for the first time he saw the plague mark—the red cross over the words! “God help us.” It was a sigh that that household had been cast off by the world. That really does happen,, sometimes. Our trouble or folly may cause us to be intensely lonely; our friends, even our loved ones, may cast us off. “Can a woman’s tender care cease towards the child she bare?” Yes, it may. Many a woman has cast her erring child from her. But God wouldn’t! very sinfulness draws Him to us that He may save us. Our weakness calls .forth His pity. He remembers that we are dust.

2.—Our limited opportunities also draw forth God’s pity. The span of life is so short, and OUr circle of influence is very circumscribed. There is so much to do, so much to be; We are so very far from perfect. This causes ds to despair.

We are told that Shem lived to be 600 years old, Arphaxad to be' 438, Salah to be 433, Methuselah to be 969. Were they perfect? Did they dp great things? All that is said of Methuselah is that he died. How, then, can we whose span of life is so short, do much for God? Miss Mary Slessor lived a life of such ceaseless activity for God that many of us feel ashamed of our little service when measured by hers; but her biographer tells us that “Miss Slessor’s life was shadowed by the consciousness of how little had been done.”

God knows all about our limitations. He will not judge us according to the number of talents we possess, but on our use of them. He will not judge us according to the amount we have dorte, but the spirit in which it has been done. The faithful soul of limited but used opportunities will hear the warm “Well done.” 3. —Our desires draw forth God’s pity. They hamper us; it isn’t easy to be good; temptation can be very strong.

The great Apostle Paul cried in an agony of despair, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” EJesire pulled against duty. Paul found himself doing things that he loathed. Some commentators tell us that he was thinking of the Oriental practice of tying a corpse to a prisoner. Sin was like that to Paul, something, loathsome, something to be eager to lose. Now God know's that this is true of many of us, and in His pity He is yearning, s to help us. Paul found help; he was delivered through the. Christ Whom God sent to make men free. “Christ Jesus hath made me free.” Thus the breature of dust is helped by God to become something fine and good. Within us are great possibilities hidden by the dust, but they are there. John Ruskih, in “The Ethics of the Dust,” tells us of a stone he had. It just seemed to be a knot of pebbles fastened together by gravel, but in it were grains of gold and two diamonds. So with us. Dust though we be, there are specks of gold and diamonds within us. Shall we not give ourselves to the One Who can release this wealth from the bondage of the dust?

OUR BROTHERS’ KEEPERS,

Ey Silent Peter. Dear People, Science has already achieved much —and will assuredly' do more in the future —towards the ends for which the Church is making its appeal, i.e., the provision of employment for the workless. A long list of industries which owe their creation or their expansion to scientific research is available, including aircraft, electrical appliances, radio, solid carbon dioxide, ; etc. The British Ministry of Labour publishes figures proving that science has furnished employment for a number of workers equivalent to those displaced from declining industries since 1923 and that it has ifi addition been the means of placing a further million people' in permanent employment. As a .result of scientific research in contending with the high acid content of British fruit and in overcoming difficulties of preserving colour and flavour, the canning industry in Great Britain has expanded from the production of two or three million cans in 1925 to more than one hundred million cans in 1931. The research work of the Empire Cotton Growing Corporation, one of the youngest as well as one of the strongest organisations for research on crop production, has resulted in the increase of the production of British cotton from 30,000 tons in 1921 to 90,000 tons in 1933. A further interesting illustration of the advantages of scientific specialisation, so fat as British export industries are concerned, is the almost exclusive utilisation of British photographic and projection .lenses in the film studios of Hollywood. The Parliamentary Scientific Committee of the House of Commons, is watching British legislation very closely on behalf of the universal claims of scientific research. The British Department of Industrial Cooperation has faithfully earned the commendation Of all branches of research in regard to the vast beneficent possibilities it has opened up in the use of the experimental method in the field of industrial relations. As a consequence of enquiries made by Lord Rutherford and Sir J. J. Thomson into the structure of the atom, the number of people employed in the electrical industries has‘more than doubled during the past ten years. At the Jubilee luncheon of the Society of Engineers held June 3, Sir Frank Smith, Secretary to the British Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, pointed out that the harnessing of the electron had given birth to industries which were unknown until a few years ago. In one such industry alone, the radio indus-j try, the turnover for the year 1934 was mOre than £20,000,000. This British Department has stated time and time again that the extent to which scientific research is transforming methods of production is seldom realised. Take fOf example, the concentrated enquiry which resulted in the ! fixation of nitrogen, an achievement , which nullified the menace that had been arising in regard to food supplies, owing to the Steady diminution of > Chile nitrate; and also the scientific . production of new steel cutting tools, etc. Science has more than vindicated ’ the claim that there exists as vital a need to apply the pressure of the s scientifically economic view to the humanitarian aims Of religion as there does for the necessity to give the fullest consideration to the humanitarian : views of the Church in respect of all l branches of scientifically evolved poli- . cies. BleSsed are they whodind them- . selves able to apprehend both the scientifically economic and the, purely 1 humanitarian aspects Of One and the I same problem, for theirs is the king- • dom Of sanity in ’ a world gone m£d on expedients and palliatives.

Yours as ever,