THE RELIGIOUS OUTLOOK

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 28 March 1936, Page 11

THE RELIGIOUS OUTLOOK

(Contributed! Prayer “Master Divine, Give us this day Thy spirit, The breath of Thy life, The effulgence of Thine exceeding glory That our souls may be filled with the peace and joy of Thy presence, With the unspeakable bliss of the knowledge that we are with Thee, With the power of the enduring courage, That come from Thyself alone. Cast out from our hearts all weakness, All pettiness of outlook, all meanness of ideal, Purge us from all desire for self-grati-fication, Save us from the beast that lurks within us, From our own lower selves, From the sins of the flesh and the deadlier sins of the spirit, From pride, from desire of recognition, From a yearning for visible results in our service. Amen. —J. S. Iloyland. Church Union in South India Dr Stanley Jones, who is disturbed at the delay in consummating the scheme for clmrcli union in South India, lias made a suggestion which, seems worthy of reporting. Ho maintains that while we are divided “at the margins" we already have a real unity at the centre. “The Christian Church is the most united body in existence if it would but believe it,” for its people share a common life and experience. Differences there are in matters of faith and order, but the facts prove that no •one communion is a particular channel of grace. “All claims of special and exclusive validities are proved untrue by the very facts of life.” He suggests that the Church should recognise the underlying facts of unity by styling the whole Christian Communion in India “The Church of Christ in .India,” and that each particular denomination should retain its distinctive name in a sub-title, “Church of England Branch,” “Presbyterian Branch,” “Methodist Branch,” etc. Each branch would then retain its own expression of the corporate life, but would regard itself as part of tlie whole. Dr Jones claims that, such action would enable the Church to face the world as a unity and would be possible of accomplishment without compromise at once.

Love is Seldom Unselfish A life without love in it is like a heap of ashes upon a deserted hearth—with the fire dead, the laughter stilled and the light extinguished. It is like a winter landscape, with the sun hidden, the flowers frozen, and the wind whispering through the withered leaves — God knows we need all the unselfish love that can come to us. For love is seldom unselfish. There is usually the motive and the price. Do you remember William Morris, and how his life was lived, his fortune spent, his hands busied—in the service of others? He was the father of the .settlement movement, of co-operative homes for working people, and of the arts and crafts revival, in our day. He was a

“soldier of the common good.” After be was gone —his life began to grow in radiance and power, and like a beacon set high upon a dangerous shore. In the twilight of his days he wrote what I like to think was his creed—and mine: “I'm going your way, so let us go hand in hand. You help me and I’ll help you. We shall not beMiere verylong, for soon death, the kind old nurse, will come hack and rock us all to sleep. Let us help one another while we may.”—Frank P. Tebhetts.

Escaping from God The text of Mr Weatherliead’s sermon was Psalm 139: 7, Religion, he said, was a popular topic of conversation. As with music, people got out of it what they put into it. Some, who were not interested, excused themselves by saying they found as good people outside the Church as inside. But these had never seen the real thing. Church members often failed to reflect Christ, hut our lives should he such as to attract men to Him. Some thought they could grow up into the truth and make it a creed. Though creeds were not to be despised, real religion was an experience. It was conventional Christianity which had crushed this. But wc had no right to turn away from God because of the imperfections, of Christianity. To hide behind the faults of His followers was cowardly. God, as the Psalmist had said, was inescapable. Francis Thompson was right in “The Hound of Heaven”—we cannot get away from the patter of His feet in our flight. We might say We had finished with God, hut He had not finished with us. We were always surrounded by the tides of His desires and the ocean of His Spirit. Paul had kept Him back until he found the real thing, and we were in the same danger. Mr Weathcrlicad appealed to the audience to stop thinking and to stop and , think instead. Would we but listen, we could not miss His voice.

The Christian Sunday Here are some arrestive thoughts upon this precious possession of Christian civilisation which is, at present, in danger of being foolishly despised and rejected. They come from ail interesting review by J.T.S. in the “British Weekly” of a new hook by a Roman Catholic writer of Austria called “The Dav is Thine”:—

A Sunday makes us great only if its meaning is grasped by us in its profound reality and its religious claims. A pettily imagined, comfortably upholstered Sunday will make us Philistines.” .

True,'this is only a fraction, seventh part of our time. But because it is the Day of the Lord, it is also the Loyd of our days. “We, as guests of God, will be led by Him into the fullness of the Divine riches, and into those secret rooms in which the Holy Spirit works mid from which the life of His holy Church proceeds. He is concerned about us, for He knows us, and-under-stands that the manifold occupations of the week keep our soul’s gaze fixed upon the ground, and prevent us from looking up to the heights. Therefore He has placed the Sunday of His rest amidst the unrest of our days. ‘Lift up thine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh they help!’ We sometimes go among the mountains, and from their dear air we seek to draw strength for our narrow affairs of the week. But God calls our souls to the high places of Sunday, and in these wc find health and joy.”