SUNDAY READING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11056, 6 May 1899, Page 4 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING.

A THREEFOLD MOTTO. [BY REV. F. E. MEYER.] Let mo give you tho threefold motto which I tako from Luther's Bible: "Be silent, to tho Lord, and lot Him mould thco; fret not." Our own English version gives the words thus: "Rest in tho Lord and wait patiently for Him; fret not;" but I like Luther's vorsion as I have quoted it. There is a great deal of fret among God s own people. I will speak of it in thrco directions fret in prayer, fret in usefulness, fret in tho growth of tho Christian life. In oaoh of tlitso three departments tho mossago of tod to us is, "lie still; rest in Mo; wait for ! Me, and I will mould thee." _ , First as to prayer. With many of us it 18 ' rather a mental exercise than ft waiting on : God. We gird ourselves to agonise and strive : with God with too much of tho energy of the flesh. We desire tho conversion of our Sundayschool class or our congregation for the success of this work or that. Wo frequently go to (Joel in prayer as though by the intensity and impetuosity and vehemence of our ejaculations and agonisings we will appease Him. I have sometimes met with people who reminded me of tho priests of Baal, who cut I themselves and cried, "0 Baal, hear us!" | from morning oven till noon, as though they were going to compel God to do as wo will. I A man does not prevail with God that way. 1 In your own home, what is it that prevails with you most? It is not the boisterous strength of some child that will have its way, but tho helplessness of the little cripplo that lies in that bed. As that little helpless 0110 looks up to you thoro is more that touches your heart in its muto appeal than in the strength of tho other. So it is in dealing with God. Truo prayer is getting into sympathy with God, in knowing what God wants to give us, in understanding the mind of Christ revealed by the Holy Ghost. In your prayers lie less eager to impress certain things on God than to lot Him impress things on you. Instead of going to God with a certain programme, let God inculcate upon you His programme. If in your daily prayer you would quietly wait and stay your fover, your passion, your ve- ; homence, till tho Holy Spirit moulds yon, : you would find yourself presently moro vc- | hement, more intense, moro ardent, not with ; thoughts and desires generated in your own : heart, but with thoughts and desires that ; have descended to you from God out of heaven. ! So much of our praying time is wasted I time, beoauso we aro not in the current- of 1 God's thought, wo are not in a lino with ] God's purposes. Wo want this and that, as | tho woman did who came to Christ about her daughter. She had to learn to put Christ in His placo, and take her own place among the dogs, and then the answer came. You My you must liavo your child converted. Yes. But if you "be still" alwut it, and trust God, you will find that His desire will animate your prayer. You will not pray for tho child to l>e converted because it would bo such a relief to your houso and to yourself to liavo her sympathy, but you will want her converted becauso God seeks it for Christ's glory. So also about our Christian work. I know my own heart, and judge by it the hearts of other believers. There is so much Christian activity, so much advertising, so many new methods, so many rather sensational appliances in our church work. Wo do so much more philanthropic work that our forefathers did; wo are so thick on the ground; we want to keep our church well to the front; wo aro eager not to be left behind in the busy rush. We say we want to do as much good as we can, and probably wo mean it, but yet wo tako care still to bo well in evidence.

Hero, again,_ comes our motto, " Fret not." Do not bo so impassioned. Do not be always seeking new methods. Do not be always looking into tlio papers to find ?omo now thing that you might adopt. Do not be tearing loaves out of other people's diaries, so as to reproduce them in your own life; they may not all pertain to your disposition or idiosyncrasy. , A great deal of the work that we have dono in tho world will not bear inspeotion; wo might as well not have dono it at all for all tlio good that it has effected. Wo promoted it. Wo threw ourselves into it. We collected tlio funds. We sustained it. The whole thing omanated'from us and ended with us. If we would do loss and quiotly permit God to mould or fashion us, He would show us just what Ho wants. If other moil did moro work, mado morQ show, it would be sufficient for us to stand before Him and say: "It is enough for me to servo Thy purpose in the world; I will not frot myself." You say, "Do you not think that might load to indolence and inactivity?" Put your question to Paul, and ask him what he makes of it. You find that all through his Christian lifo ho is perpetually talking of work; " yet not I, but God who energises mo mightily." Tho result in his life was that he could not bo in a city for an hour without talking to a doraomao; ho could not bo in prison, but before midnight ho convinced and baptised Ins gaoler; he could not stand before a Roman Governor, but he almost persuaded him to be a Christian; he could not be tied to a noklior for a few hours, but ho would speak to Ills guard in the power of Christ. Talk about taking tilings easily! When you have the dynamics of the Holy Ghost in you as r'fU 0 .f °!)= in ? !Uld , suggest that it should take it easdy along tlie line when tlio luniaco and steam aro in full blast. A word in closing about character. I have as mud, thOS Y- b ° Say they are not toSZFPf BroCe 83 would lik ° other- t0 invention and to the other they read a variety °, devout books • they try 1 all buds of methods, and thoy are thine A f ? nd ? ° urn S to ««iuire somewnng. A friend of mine put it bo truly tlio other day. t She said that for four yem ° had been trymg to atuin something" plen v W ni hld 4 ? , ai " il> There ™ plenty of _ people trying to attain Pen i Son >Bthing - Holy j , Ghosb fulness sin ind P T' deliverance from sin, and go always trying, fretting and worrying over it. "Whereas the true way tob really'holy really full of God, is to bo still. I have found such help lately in mv We in sitting still before God-not in tryhig' ML- - alißing, but simply waiting with ail the windows and doors of the soul I hSI hT' J™" 1, Tllat is the way to foi in Go . d lnto you - Frot not thereof l nuT 1 '? ■ ogard to Christian work or to CMistian character, 80 may God givo fuU ot Himseifjtui

HEART to heart. £ Fob some time past you have sought to rOW your vessel to tho port the Master indicated, but von have been "toiling in rowing, for most adverse winds, most contrary and unexpected gusts have you encountered. So utterly weary, discouraged, and dispirited aro you, that even tho prospect of a resting time does not dispel the " gloomy thoughts that rise." Perhaps you remember occasions when even your annual holiday proved a bittor disappointment; tho glorious mountains, rippling lakes, tho fair landscape, and the manv-coloured, ever-changing sea failed to enchant you, and you returned unreMed and unrecreated. ,„ . . , Ah, sometimes the disciples of Christ make the mistake of looking for rest where tho supply fails ! ... Change of society, change of air, change of scenery, change of occupation, or nothing to do, are .lie sources to whioh 6ome look for their much-needed supply of rest. But na.s not experience again and again proved, that, with all these things at hand, rest may be far from the tired brain; the weary, disappointed heart; the over-wrought, baffled scholar who, seemingly to little purpose, has been trying hard to solve the problems and mvstcries that have confronted him as he has sat a learner in the Heavenly Teacher's school ? Tired one I the Rest Giver has a word for thee. He bids you "enter into His rest." Tho repose you need is in Himself ! What a comfortable pillow do His loving and strong words, and many and great promises make ! Have you tried it . Are you resting on the promises of God ? Hav® you considered Jesus tho Rest Giver—His love, His power, His faithfulness, His allsufficiency, till you cannot help resting in Him? "Como unto Mo, and I will give you rost." "Com# unto Mo, I will refresh you." Cease trying to got rest by your own efforts: believe and obey His word, and take His gift. They "which have believed do enter into rest." Be honest with thyself, and see if the cause of thy unrest, discontent, dissatisfaction, be not through "an evil heart of unbelief" (Heb. iii. 12]. Confess to God, tho Searcher of the thoughts of thy heart, that thou hast been verily a "fool, ' and "slow of heart to believe" that He means what Ho says. None of His promises aro "too good to be truo !" God is ! and is all tho Word declares Him to be,-the Faithful and True, tho Ever-living and Ever-loving One ! Say, then, is it difficult for you to believe and trust One who is utterly trustworthy? And, He being what Ho is, would you have aught to pride yourself on though you had "all faith, so that you could remove mountains ?" "Ah ! nere is tho secret of failure—all has been well outside, but deep down in the heart there has been a leakage, an underdrain of discontent, envy, fretfulness," unbelief ! "With whom was He grieved 40 years ? And to whom swarc He that they should i-ot enter into His rest, but to them that believed not ? Let us therefore fear, lost a promise being loft us of entering into His rest any of us should seem to como short of it." How then will you treat this awful sin of unbelief ? Will you treat it as a sin of small moment, seeing it grieves God, awakens His wrath, and robs you of peace and rest and joy ? Will you not obey 1 John i. 9, that, confessing you sin of unbelief, you may at once receive pardon and cleansing, and takfi without delay tho step of faith into "His rest ?"

If wo but saw how the gates of opportunity open and close; how the possibilities of today, neglected, become morrow the things which never can bo done how unused strength wastes away, and brings up behind it no other strength; how the grace that lies about all our occasions, ready to flow upon them at the touches of our intelligence— slighted, lifts itself up into the heavens and loaves us in hardness and death; how, on the other hand, when used, it drops upon us like the rain and distils liko the dew; how work done makes work easier: how the voluntary use of all that is within us," and without us, 100, of soul and sinew, of love and thought, of time and strength, and hours of prayer, will bring upon us the gentle pressures of God's newest, freshest grace—if wo but saw such things as these, what girdings there would be among us !

" WITH THEE." INTO the dark, Lord Jesus, Into tho dark with. Thee. There hath come to my heart a calling apart, And a whispered, " Follow Mo!" Take Thon my hand. Lord Jesus, In Thy mighty clasp divine; Hold it so close. Lord Jesus. That it tremble not in thine; For my heart shrinks back from the unknown track. And my ieet tread falteringly; And into the dark I follow— Into the dark with Thee! Into the dark, Lord JesusIs it the dark with Thee? Nay, Thou makest the night about me light, And mine eyes— eye? shall seeShall " see the King in his beauty," In the land that is far away Shall see in the heaven sunshine, The path that is hid to-day. Then why should I fear what the untried year May bring to mine or me? Into the dark I followNay, into the light, with Thee! EDITH gilling cheery.