SUNDAY READING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8538, 11 April 1891, Page 4 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING.

SAVED TO SAVE. [BY REV. WILLIAM HASLAM, M.A.] A lady came to me in much trouble one day, having heard me say that we were saved to save others. Not saved to go to Heaven when we die; but to live for the glory of God. " How can I live for the glory of God?" she asked. " I have as much as I can do to work out my own salvation." I said, " Sit down that we may talk a little about this matter. First, let me ask you, Are you working for your salvation — that is, in order to attain it ' "Oh, no," she answered; "I know better than that, thank God. lam saved not by my works, but by the finished work of Christ—l believe in Him." " Praise God, I said ; " but please tell me what you mean." " I mean," she replied, " that as a saved one I have to work out and to 3ecure my final salvation." After a few more questions, I elicited that this lady did not really believe in salvation here upon earth ; but probation. She believed that she was saved, as she called it, but only conditionally ; her final salvation into Heaven was dependent upon her faithfulness to grace. " You are mistaken at starting," I said. " The salvation which God has provided for us is full and complete, and must be altogether accomplished by Himself, not partly by Him and partly by you. It is a salvation' from the penalty, power, and presence of sin. Here we have three words each beginning with the letter P, which fully describe this salvation. Christ died to save us from the past, He rose and lives to keep us in the present, and He is coming again in _ the future to take us to Himself in a glorified state. He is our salvation from beginning to end."

"Surely that is Calvinistic teaching, is it not?" said the lady, as if she was afraid of me, or took me for a heretic. I repeated, Christ died, rose from the dead, and He is coming again. He redeemed us, spirit, soul, and body, and, believing in Him, we have this threefold salvation." " What, do we have all this at once, and may we live as we like ?" "Oh, dear no," I answered; "we should give ourselves up as lost sinners to be saved —as saved sinners to be kept—and as saved and kept believers, we should be looking for the Lord's coming to change our bodies, and take us to Himself. The Apostle Paul says, ' 1 know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him until that day.'" The lady remarked, "It will take me a long time to learn all that; I have been brought up in a very different school." _ I said, " It is a pity you were not in the school of Christ, where only the Scriptures are taught." "Then, according to you," she said, "I have nothing to do but to sit down ?" "No, friend," I replied, "do not mistake me. You did not obtain your salvation that way; you believed in Jesus, and were saved. In the same manner, believe in a living Christ, and you will be kept. _ Keep on trusting in Him, and then yon will find that you have a work to do for Him." " Do you really think," she asked, " that I could ever do anything for the Lord ?" " Most certainly," 1 replied; " your salvation was freely given to you for this very object. The Garden of Eden was given, to Adam, and then he was told to dress and to to keep it—that is, make it profitable. You are put into salvation that you may live and walk in such a manner as to recommend it to others.

" Suppose," I said, "you have an estate given to you with a silver-mine in it; what good would that mine be to you or to anyone else if you did not work it out? You have a rich treasure given with your salvation, in the privilege of making other people as happy as you are. This is the way to work out your own salvation; it will then prove to be a mine of endless treasure to you, aud to others besides." " Oh, dear, no," said the lady, shaking her head; "that joy is not for such a poor, weak creature as myself. I may as well try to climb into Heaven !" "Shall I tell you something?" I said. "I have more hope of you in your utter inability than if you said, ' Very well, I will do it.'" "But how can I possibly do any such work as this she asked. I replied, " There is only one way to do it —that is, to give yourself to Christ, as one who desires to do His will, and ask Him, 'Lord, what wouldst Thou have me to do Then leave yourself in His hands, and be sure you will receive an answer." She went away, and in a few weeks' time came again to see me with a very different appearance. I said, " You are looking happier to-day." "Indeed," she replied, "I have reason to do so. I can see now the threefold character of salvation, and long to tell others about deliverance from the penalty, power, and presence of sin. But how can I begin? What shall I do?" " My dear friend," I said, " I am not your master; ask this same question before the Lord, for Scripture tells us that'it is God that worketh in us to will and to do of His eood pleasure.' It is for this reason I urge you to give yourself to Him, that He maycome and dwell in you by the Holy Spirit. Then He will work in you, and by you Your work is not yours, but the Lord's. "You should fear and tremble, lest you take it out of His hands, or go before you are sent. Follow His will, and be His servant, and He will then use you for the work He has for you to do. All who are converted are created anew in Christ Jesus unto good works. Every tree has its own fruit, and so each believer has his own separate work". When you have found your lifework you will have liberty, and be in your proper element, like a bird in the air or a fish in the water." She looked amazed, so I went on to say, " Fear not; God can make you willing to do your life-work, and He also can make you able to accomplish it. Remember, your weakness is no barrier to that, but rather the other' way. The strong must be made weak before God can use them; but you are weak to begin with." t This lady was enabled to give herself entirely to the Lord's work; and, to her great joy, found Him true to His promise. She was surprised one day by a visit from a lady who used to criticise and laugh at her devotions. Now she had come with tears to ask, " What shall I do to be saved?" Our friend was for the moment at a loss for an answer; but, after a short pause, she said, "I remember what I was told to do when I was anxious like you; it was to believe that Jesus took my place on the cross to give me His place before God." She was enabled to bring this i inquirer to pardon and peace, and afterwards induced her to be a helper in the work in which she was engaged. ■ , ■■ In this and such ways this lady and her friend were led to go forward in saving others, as they themselves had been saved. *

*V. , CHRIST THE KING. ~~~ [BY THE REV. ALEXANDER MACLAREX, D.D.I There is a new kind of King. He come, not mounted on a war-horse or thundering across the battlefield in a scythe-armed chariot, like the Pharaohs and the Assyrian nionarchs, who have left us their vain glorious monuments, but mounted on thi emblem of meekness, patience, gentleness and peace. And He is a pauper King f. He has to borrow the beast on which' Ha rides, and His throne is the poor, perhaps ragged, robes of a handful of fishermen And His attendants are not warriors beari ing spears, but peasants with palm branches" And the salutation of His royalty is not the blare of trumpets, but the " Hosanna!" from a thousand throats. That is not the sort o King that the world calls a King. The Roman soldiers might well have thought they were perpetrating an exquisite jest when they thrust the reed into His unresisting hand, and crushed down the crown of thorns on His bleeding brow. But the symbol discloses the very secret of His Kingdom, the innermost mysteries of His own character, and of the forces t< which He entrusts the further progress oj His Word. Gentleness is royal and omnipotent; force and violence are feeble. Th« Lord is in the still, small voice, not in the earthquake, nor the fire, nor the mighty wind. The dove's light pinion will fly further than the wings of Rome's eagles, with their strong talons and blood-dyed beaks. And the kingdom that is establsshed in meekness and rules by gentleness and for gentleness' and has for its only weapons the power of love and the omnipotence of patience, that is the kingdom which shall be eternal au<j universal.

' Now, all that is a great deal more than petty sentiment; it has the closest practical bearing upon our lives. How slow God's Church has been to believe that the strength of Christ's Kingdom is meekness! Professing Christian men have sought to win the world to their side ; and by wealth, or force, or persecution, and this, that, or the other of the weapons out of its armoury to promote the Kingdom of Christ. And it has all been in vain. There is only one thing that conquers hate, and that is meek love. _ There is only one way by which Christ's Kingdom can stand firm, and that is its unworldly contrast to all the manner of human dominion. Wheresoever God's Church has allied itself with secular sovereignties, and trusted in the arm of flesh, there has the fine gold become dimmed. Endurance wears out persecution. Patient submission paralyses hostile violence. You cannot keep on striking down unresisting crowds with the sword. The Church of Christ is an anvil that has been beaten upon by many hammers, and it has wo**ifi them out. Meekness is victorious, and the Kingdom of Christ can only be advanced by the faithful proclamation of His gentle love from lips that are moved by hearts which themselves are conformed to His patient image. Then, still further, let me remind you that this symbol carries in it, as it seems tome, the lesson of the radical incompatibility of war with Christ's kingdom and dominion. It has taken the world ail these centuries to begin to learn that lesson. But slowly they are coming to it, and the day will dawn when all the pomp of -warfare and the hell of evil passions from which it comes, and which it stimulates, will be felt to be as utterly incompatible with the spirit of Christianity as is slavery to-day. The prophecy which underlies our symbol is very significant in this respect. Immediately upon that vision of the meek King throned on the colt the foal of an ass follows this: " And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horses from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off; and He shall speak peace unto the heathen." Let me beseech you, Christian men and women, to lay to heart the duty of Christ's followers in reference to the influence and leavening of public opinion upon this matter, and to see to it that, so far as we can help, we set ourselves steadfastly against that devilish spirit which still oppresses with an incubus almost intolerable the nations of so-called Christendom. Lift up your voice. Be not afraid, and say, " We are the followers of the Prince of Peace, and we war against the war that is blasphemy against His dominion." And so, still further, note the practical force of this symbol as influencing our own conduct. We are the followers of the meek Christ. It becomes us to walk in ail meekness and gentleness. Spirited conduct" is the world's euphemism for unchristian conduct in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred. The perspective of virtue has altered since Jesus Christ taught us how to love. The old heathen virtues of magnanimity, fortitude, and the like have "with shame to take a lower room." There is something better than that. The saint has all the virtues ol the old heathen hero, and some more besides, which are better than these, and those whicL he has in common he has in different pro portion. The flaunting tulips and peonies ol the garden of the world seem to outshine the white snowdrops and the glowing, modest little violets below their leaves; but the one are vulgar, and they drop very soon, and the other, if paler and more delicate, are refined in their celestial beauty. The slow-pacing steed on which Jesus Christ rides will outtravel the fiery war-horse; and pursue its patient, steadfast path till He "bring forth righteousness unto judgment, and all the upright in heart shall follow Him."

OH, TO BE RIPE AND READY. Oh, to be ripe and ready For the change so soon at hand ; Oh. to be firm and steady When on Jordan's brink I stand. Oh. to be bold and fearless When death bursts on my view; Oh, to be calm and tearless When to earth I bid adieu. Oh, to have no regrettings When sinks my life-day's sun; No sad, remorseful frettings For the work I've left undone. Oh, to need no confession Of sin I did not know ; But to see each fresh transgression, And judge it ere I go. May Heaven to me open When my life's race is run, And may the first word spoken Be, " Faithful soul, well done." And, oh ! when in I enter, May the first sight I see Be Jesus in the centre Of myriads saved like me. Or, if the Lord's returning Precludes that I should die. May my bride-heart be burning To meet; Him in the sky. A.A.E.