SUNDAY HEADING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10133, 16 May 1896, Page 4 (Supplement)

SUNDAY HEADING.

THE HIDDEN LIFE.

In a sense, all life is hidden. The blood courses through the veins, as the heart keeps throbbing, throbbing, day and night. You can lay your finger on your wrist and feel the pulsings. The lungs continue breathing, fa-

iling, exhaling, without pause, from in-

fancy's first gasp until at last watching friends say "He is gone 1" Pulsings, breathings—yes; but have you found the life? What is it that keeps the heart throbbing and the lungs respiring? "Life," you say. Yes, but what is life?

Take the mind. It is ever active. One man thinks, and writes beautiful poems or charming stories; another thinks, and puts marvellous visions on canvas, or throws great bridges over rivers, or erects a noble cathedral. But whoever saw the process of thought? Mental life is hidden. Take spiritual life. We see the effects of the Holy Spirit's work— dispositions, new conduct, new character; but the divine spark of life we cannot see, as it comes down from above. It is secret, hidden. One day you are sad, disheartened, and taking up your Bible you find a word of promise, a revealing of God's love, and into your heart there comes a strange peace. You are in sorrow. A friend sits down beside you, and speaks a few words of strong comfort. You are calmed and quieted. Yet no one sees any of these spiritual processes. They are hidden,

There is an inspired word which says, " Your life is hid with Christ in God." The thought is wonderfully bold and strong. Christ is the, source of the Christian's life. Christ is in heaven with God, in God, wrapped up in the very glory of deity. The Christian's life-is with Christ in God. Its source is thus in the very heart of God. This assures us of its security. It is beyoud the reach of earthly harm. Herein, too, lies the secret of the quiet peace which we find so often in Christian sufferers. In all their pain they are sustained by some hidden strength which the world cannot understand. They are drawing their life from a source which no earthly experience could reach or effect.

We say a certain person's beauty has been wasted by sickness. A sad tragedy darkened a young woman's life. Until then her face had been beautiful with all the freshness of youth. But the five years since have been like twenty years in her life. The beauty is now faded. How could it have been otherwise with the.broken heart she brought out of those terrible days? 'Set a few minutes' conversation with her shows that in all the

wasting of physical beauty her spiritual loveliness has not been marred. She has kept near the heart of Christ in all the bitter anguish, and the joy and peace of her inner life have not failed. Beauty of the face is only external, and is transient. Any accident may mar it. But beauty of the soul is spiritual and imperishable. he best of every Christian's life remains unrevealed on the earth. We fail to realise even our own best intentions. You did not live yesterday as you meant to live when you went out in the morning'. No artist ever puts on his canvas all the beauty of his vision. No singer ever gets into the song he sings all the music of his soul. No most saintly Christian ever translates into disposition and conduct all the spiritual loveliness that glows in his ideal. Our hands are too clumsy and unskilful to express the best things of our mind and heart in word, or act, or character. We see the Rood, but cannot do it in more than a mere fragmentary way. Yet the visions of beauty which we have in mere flashes and glimmerings are hints of divine revealings that are yet to be made, and of the wondrous possibilities which lie in the hidden depths of our nature, some day to be brought out. The sea covers ereat fields of concealed

splendours. Mow and then a storm stirs its depths, and washes up a few brilliant shells or pebbles, which shiue in radiant beauty, Yet these few stones or shells are only specimens of millions more. even more brilliant

that are buried in the ocean depths. So there come out here and there, in a human life, in times of special exaltation, glimpses of something rarely beautiful—an act, a word, a self-denial, a disposition, the-revealing of some noble quality or some marvellous power or measure of love; and we say as we see it, "That is like Christ; that is a gleam of heavenly life; that is a fragment of divinity." But that' flashing gem of character, that gleam or glimmering of Christlikeness, that act which seems too pure for earth, is only a hint of the infinite possibilities of each human soul. Hidden in the depths of the nature, under all its faults and imperfections, is a life which far surpasses the highest things that are reached in this world. The love, joy, peace, unselfishness, purity, holiness, attained in the saiutliest experience of earthly Christian life, are but intimations of what we shall bo when the limiting conditions of earth shall have been left behind. There will be a time when all this hidden life shall be revealed, The bud shall burst into the rich flower. The gem shall break through its rough imprisoning crust, and shine in lustrous splendour. The dull character that here shows only gleams and flashes of spiritual beauty, amid manifold faults and infirmities. sh:.H yet untold in its very feature the beauty of Christ. The holy thoughts, desires, longings, and hunger after righteousness, that here are hindered, restrained, limited, and that fail to take full form in life and character, shall yet be wrought out in deeds as beautiful and hpiy as themselves. We shall see Christ, and wo shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.-S.S. Times.

"WHOSE EXPERIENCE IS JUST A CIRCLE." BI REV. GEORGE BOWEN.]

" A sacrifice, living or dead, most pass out ] of the possession of him who offers it. We are in the habit of offering ourselves to God, and so of proving that we hare never really given ourselves to Him. We take (his passage from an article. If we consecrate ourselves sinoerely, fully, to the Lord, we then cease to have any right over onrselves, ( any property in ourselves ; w« belong to Him to Whom we have yielded ourselves. If afterwards we oome and renewedly consecrate ourselves, is there not an implication that that first surrender has in some way been vitiated, rendered invalidthat we havu resumed to some extent the rights made over to God? And will not the habit of making such acts of consecration have the effect of making us sceptical about the possibility of yielding ourselves wholly and finally to God? : Surely if we are led' by the Spirit of God to yield ourselves full} to Him, we are then and thenceforward to reckon ourselves as His, and not to call in question the fact that we are His, but to consider this fact settled once for ever, and expect that the Spirit of God 'will constantly be with, us to show us what to do, and work iu us to will and to do of His good pleasure. It will be profitable often to call to remembrance that we have been made over to God; in fact, never to for(get it; and daily seek to have before us what 'is involved in it. t • We fear that there are too many whose re* ligious, experience is just a. circle ever renewed. ," Consecration; then, for^etfutneas or the consecration and resumption of this and that thing belonging to the sacrifice; then, distress and doubt; then, 're-consecration; and so oh— everlasting round without any real advance. .'•"''-' '& In the sixth chapter'of Romans we have some Very'emphatic teaching with reference

to this: ''Now if we be dead with Christ, we believ-; that we shall also live with Him • knowing that Christ. being . raised from the dead, dieth; no more; death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died He died unto sin once." He did not return to the sepulchre after He had once' issued from it Well, just here is the force of the parallel drawu. between His death and resurrection, physical, and ourß, spiritual: Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin. ... For sin shall not have dominion over you." The grand point to be secured is the thorough surrender and sacrifice of ourselves to God, through the recognition of the redeeming efficacy of Christ's blood. The Son of God has paid the price for us, and in view , of that we hasten to make ourselves over to ?'.,■

Him, and our most sacred obligation is to '■'.'■ regard ourselves thenceforward as Christ's. To take back anything thus laid upon the. ' altar is high treason, a most presumptuous 1 " ■ : sin which we arc to guard against with all-fe our heart. As Christ may not return to the: • tomb of Joseph of Arimatlixa, so we may uotr return to the condition of being dead hi- [•?* trespasses and sins; we are to reckon our';, -■■ti selves alive unto God, a habitation of God- r :i'? through the Spirit. To resume our own authority over ourselves, our time, to rein' . . ■; State our own will in the abdicated place, is •'.. t (i making light of the blond of the coveuant c - - wherewith we have been sanctified. .."£<.;' ,£ We believe that many are wrouging themselves out of great spiritual blessing and' X power, through not remembering the true ..'-5: significance of their act of consecration. 'II Vf there is a defective consecration, then, ,:'.. ■'•■; course, there must be a consecration not de- ..... r t fective. When fully made there will be :an v J influx of the Spirit, testifying that God has;;; accepted what we yielded and entered upon 1 ;. possession. They to whom the Epistle to the. ■:,- •'■■.; Hebrews was written had failed to do this]); :? and were in a position of great peril, and the '■% -■■! sacred writer most earnestly appeals to thc'in .". to recognise their danger, return to Christ 5 with a worthier faith, and then spend.Tio'i- ' more time in laying again the foundation ''~":' . [ repentance from dead works and of faithijr towards God. Dead works are our owii £■ works—works done in our own strength, not .-■ of Christ through the Spirit. ■i*'<'.'% > The Christian once united to Christ bra'"? living faith has no more right to ignore that-*:'. union, or call it in question, than a man who ■■: :'■ has been married to the object of his affect dons has to doubt, or attempt to verity, or '? propose to renew, the nuptial ceremony. The; ''. covenant which God makes with His people'. . is an everlasting covenant, and the believer . must regard it as such, and take it tor V granted that God will withhold f. m him?*/ nothing that belongs to the new and true' '. life. The strongest expressions are used in : the Bible to set forth the permanence and unalterableness of the Mew Covenant. There ■ is nothing more heinous in the sight of Him' """' with whom we thus covenant than to fail to take for granted that He means what '"'He ■.'■ says. Christians consecrate themselves in';:' the most formal and solemn way, and pre' .'■■ gently allow themselves to forget that they ; .. have made themselves ovei'io the Lord to 'be ■• led by the Spirit, or they act as though they ■ =■ thought God had forgotten it. ,;..""...;; FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. &•>.:'*"' Shall I then kneel with those and raise ...' My voice with theirs, who know of old •'« '.''' The century's sad disease, which slays Our faith and strikes our yearnings cold;;. I, who have listened while the coarse, ~.;"!'' •••',:. Glib unbeliever marshalled out '/ ;: : ■ '.'%■. His legions of unfaithful Doubt, ':;:. ■>' And found no other god but Farce ; ..' ■'■■ And laughed the Christian tale to scorn,' ■■■■!'■ ',-.-■;■' The God-like Victim virgin born, .-{.[■ ;■ "V The atoning pain, the mystic cross, " /■■';'' ■■;' ■ The sacred salutary loss! , : ';'' .'£■ What care I ? ,God there is I know, . ":...' >J ; Who rules the worlds and bade us be i '">; ' V: But shall He care for things below '.;>,. ."/ And show His bidden face to me! ..■;.. >~.:"" Far, faraway He seems to stand, ■':'.. ' "":■" Too bright, if present, for our need, .■'■■''"' ft Nor else than through the Faith His Hand!""* ■*'•. Has given us, know we Him ind.- ; :U. '--V ■ No other gave He. The strong hours ~. ._)'"■ Have wreaked in vain their age-long powers, ■■. .-■; Unchanged as from His lips It came, ■.'*;■:■.■ To-day it lives and rules the same. .-;•"* Enough for me, and for my need, ■"' ■•;' Knough for dear lives deae and gone, ''••'•••', No other faith is ours, nor creed, To speed the labouring ages on. ..';'••'." Then since He is, and since no more .... .'■,' . . Without Him can I live and move, ''V" I join the ranks of faith aid love, "■■'>• And rise and enter and adore ! LEWIS Morris?..