SUNDAY READING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8020, 6 August 1887, Page 4 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING.

THE PETTINESS OF MAN AND THE GREATNESS OP GOD. [BY KEV. EDWARD WHITE,] Of all indefensible notions this must be the moat indefensible : that the Infinite Being : measures the value of objects in proportion to their size. Dogs any man really beliove that if there be a God at all who is &n intelligent Being, even if Hβ were only as intelligent as a niau may be, that He values things chiefly according to their cubio contenta; so that what you call a "little" world hiis no chance of the notice of the Everlasting Miud? Everything that wo know hero of mind leads us to conclude very differently. Men do nnt value each other chiefly according to their size, nor anything else, when they are educated into some right perception. An American Barnum, a sort of deitied showman belonging to some heathen Pantheon, might vaiue things according to their bigueoa ; but men of real ability never think of this. The noblest nations have not inhabited tho largest territories. Palestine, Greece, Italy, England, Franco, Switzerland are not the biggest countries, but they are the most famous. It i? not the largest buildings, the largest works of art, which are of tho highest value. The Venus nf Milo is worth moro than the ('olosims of Rhodes. A dia- ! mond, like the Koh-i-noor, is often worth a wuoie coal mine, though both are made of carbon. And one man like David may be " worth ten thousand" of the common soldiers, oven though each of these were one of the eons of Anak, At what point of sizo, let us ask of these enemii 3 of anthropomorphic religion, would you allow it to be likely that tho Deity would begin to take notice of the worlds which Ho has made ? Tho planet Jupiter is 1200 times bigger than the earth. Would you think that a world 1200 times bigger than ours wonld be worthy of tho Creator's notice ? Supposing its inhabitants were 1200 times taller than men— i.e , 7200 feot, or a mile and a-quarter high —would you think such creatures large enough for the Creator of tho universe to govern, or to redeem from destruction to a life immortal ? Might it not still be said, " What is such a world to a Being who is Infinite and Eternal? They are lees than nothing and vanity boforc Him, and,therefore, let all the inhabitants of this planet spend their short lives in drinking and trifling, or in philosophing, on the ground of opposition to anthropomorphism, against God and religion." This way of estimating things by their comparative size is as vulvar and unworthy as the authropamorphiMn of paganism itself. See bow a painter labours on a miniature, an engraver on a gem, a goldsmith on a jewel or a locket. The biggest books are not tho best, and the bigceat empires nre not the wealthiest. Sα, theu, we may bo certain, to begin with, that EUUB and planets do not rank in the Creative Mind according to their cubio contents. " Thou, Bethelem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of tbee shall He come who ia to bo Ruler of My people Israel." Almighty God, if lie exist at all, must be equally preuent in all psrts of epaco, and must penetrate by liis pervading Spirit all worlds and all organisms alike ; and His prosence ia, therefore, here aa fully a 8 in the loftiest heaven. Ho irho made man in His own image of reason and love cannot possibly account man unworthy of notice because of hia littleness. Do you despioo your baby ? He who has made this world to teem to the eye of sense to be tho only world has eo mado it doubtless to teach us that, although "ten thousand times ten thousands" of other worlds stand before Him, thfy do not distract Bis attention from man nor diminish llio merciful care of His youngest child. The unlimited siza of the universe, aa we now know it, ought to be a warning to ua against the presumption of couoluding a -priori that a minute and perßonal providence is impossible. The revelations of the telescope and of the microscope counterbalance and explain each other, Nothing is too great for the 1 Mightiest One, and nothing is too minute for His care. " lie who taketh up the isles i as a very littlo thing, and for whom Lebanon is not sufficient to burn," says, nevertheless, " On this man will I look, even to him th.-.t is humble and of a contrite spirit, and trem>» bleth at My Word" (leaiah Ixvi., 2). god's lovk of being loved. But new comes for consideration the deeper question of the nature of God, as Capable or incapable of real feeling towards man—uu caring or not earing for our affection—3o as to be fitted to win our love to Him, a personal and everlaeting love. For this ia our question to-day. Nothing ib clearer in the Sacred Writings than that they all alike—Moses, the Old Testament prophetH and psalmUts, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and all the holy apostles — rr-present (iod, not only as essential Love, but as asking for our love, and delighting in it, as the love of Hie children, to whom He has ''givpti all things." God's love of being loved is, perhaps, the foremost quality of the divine nature as described to U3 in Revelation. Js this a reality or a mere figure of speech—a fashion of Hebrew poetry ? Undoubtedly the prevailing opinion among all ranks of anti-religious people, when they wish to appear signally enlightened, ie that the Scriptural language respecting God—as a living j'erson near at hand, full of interest regarding ourselves—is but an accommodation to tho weakness of the lower order of minds ; fo that when prophets and apostles speak of God as resenting ingratitude and insult, as repaying the wicked man to his face, ae indignant at atrocious wrong, as loving, grieving, sympathising, seeking to associate with us in closo communion of spirit, aa delighting in good and provoked by bad men—these aro only so many pious fictions, parables ; tho absolute truth being that the divine nature is infinitely removed above b!1 possibility of personal regard or moral emotion, of pleasure or of disgust; that, in fact, the Godhead dwells in an un» broken calm, so that there is no reality in expressions which practically describe Him as interchanging His own love with ours. If this bo true, it is obvious to remark how uninteresting the worship of such a God must be ; of One to whom you bring thought, anxiety, emotion, passion, praise, affection, gratitude, prayer, heart-sacrifice, but who, in return, looks upou you with a distant gar.e of passive omniscience, without tho faintest approach to responsive fatherly love.

And is not this the direct reason why so few of mankind inwardly worship the God in whom they profess to believe with half the enthusiasm which the adorers of inferior beings devote to their service ? Why, I remember seeing a, young lady at Rome, in the church of St. Augustine, throw herself down on the threshold of tho chapel of the Blessed Mary, in an agony of passion and affection, and kiss the stones with a loving and tearful address of prayer such as 1 have never seen any human being offer to God the Saviour. Men's inmost beliefs respecting their Maker have become widely such as to quench soul-communion at ita source. They conceive of the all-pervading Presence, as if there wero in it no more real sympathetic feeling than there is in the force of attraction, or in the diffused electricity of the globe. No human soul can sincerely yearn after such a God as this. Men's philosophies grow up from their spiritual states. The popular metaphysics, both of Earopo and Asia, spring from the depths of a , moral nature which does not "like to retain God in its knowledge," and which, therefore, readily shrouds itself in an agnostic philosophy, or banishes God to the ikies, or out of the universe. Now, the'divine revelation in Christ is directed to the establishment of a new and butter knowledge of Him who ie not far from any one of us, who is acquainted with all our ways, and who can both be "grieved" and " vexed" by our sins, and delighted with our returning affection. THE WITNESS OF OUR NATURE. Consider how strange it would be if God were such s» Being as this—if the Creator of all sensitive souls wore the One Spirit devoid of real senee and feeling. We live in a world of creatures exquisitely organised for enjoyment or suffering. What a world of quivering flesh, of nerves thickly interwoven, and sensible to light, to sound, to heat and cold, to tastes and smells, to disease and pain I And hero is man, all life from head to foot, body and mind all exquisite sense, the surface one delicate network of nerves, the depths full of all possibilities of fearful agony or healthy delight. The spirits of men, again, are keenly sensible in every fibre. You cannot j speak or act without "hurting" someone, i unless you consider them. What wounds of vanity, whab torments of injured selflove, what aches and woes of agonised affection, what still deeper throes and miseries of a life-lasting evil conscience! In the asm o of praise and blame how deep a wellspring of intensest joy or grief, aud a well that never dries up )

Now, is this world—bo fall of vital ■erjeibility—the work of a Being who possesses □one —of an all-pervading, impascive intelligence, insensate, incapable of moral anger, of sympathy, of personal affection—in whom there resides no possibility of feeling or wrong done to Elimself or others; who is incapable of indignation, of tenderness, of eelf-eacrifice, companionship, or gladness? la this world—so fnll of paseion—the work of a Power wbo Is a kind of Infinite Snow King, having no real delight in His ohildren, in their work, and in their play, in their troubles, in their agonies, or in their joys ? Is God's goodness only a word for theologians to set forth in articles of faith, or in culpits on Sundays, in mockery of a quality which is real in man? Oh, surely liiis great world of sense and foeling wae burn out of a nature all sentient and vital, and rose like some form of beauty from a wondrous ocean cf Deity, fnll of the life whence she sprang. Consider, too, what an effort seems to be made in the physical world to convey to our minds on all sidea the impression that there is real and personal feeling towards man in the Most High. Nature's teaching does not all end in science—it is fnll of tender strokes of art. Does not every living form in plant or flower, every delicioua landscape or breadth of ocean, lighted with tlft radiance of the morning or the evening sun, breathe forth to us the feeling of some Unseen, but not far distant, Omnipotent Artist, who loves Hia children ?

WHOM TO MARRY. [BY T. DE WITT TALMAQK.j I charge you, don't marry a man of evil habits. If ho will not now resist them, he' certainly will not when he has gained the prize> The almshouses are full of women who thought they could reform their husbands. .No man twenty-five years of age, if he is addicted to intoxicants, can be reformed by a wife, for in the present day his system is full of stryohnine, nux vomica, logwood, and other poisons. He is past reform ; it is like taking a wheelbarrow on the tracks of the Hudson River ilailroad to stop the lightning express. I would also charge you to avoid alliance with extremely selfish mon ; those who think of their business and nothing else. Some men are so much married to their business that their marriage V) you would be absolute bigamy. In India the wife leap 3 upon the funeral pyre of her dead husband; but in America many wives leap upon the funeral pyre of their living husbands. I counsel you to unite yourself with a man who is a fortune in himself. Lands, money, and the like are all well enough, but two or three unlucky investments may upturn them. Thtre are men who aro fortunes in themselves, who are always genial and large-hearted. But I would also charge yon. don't look for a perfect man. If you find a man who is perfect, who is incapable of mistakee, don't unite yourself with him ; what a wife you would make for him! In other words, there aro no perfect men. The only perfect pair slid down the banks of Paradise together.