RELIGIOUS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1290, 19 November 1896, Page 41

RELIGIOUS.

Our Lay Sermon FOR Sunday Reading. HOUSE BUILDING AND CHARACTER BUILDING. “ A workman that needeth not to be ashamed.” —II Timothy, ii., 15. When a child comes into this world he comes without any character at all. Ho is simply a bundle of latent energies, a fagot of possibilities or a piecß of white paper on which, as time goes on, he will write the history of a soul and demonstrate its success or failure. The science of heredity teaches us that he may have strong tendencies to either good or evil, but when his reason puts the crown on his head, as Napoleon did at Notro Dame, he is in full command of himself and can settle his destiny beyond a peradventure. If he is long sighted he will see that he must not become the creature of circumstance, but must bend circumstance to the accomplishment of a high, noble and divine purpose.

Religion comes to his aid and tells him, just as an old man would tell a young man, that one course of life will in the long run, however enticing it may be at the beginning, produce misery both of body and mind, and that another course of life will in the long run produce satisfaction and happiness. That is the chief function of religion, and that is the only kind of religion which can rightfully claim his attention. It is a man’s best friend, because it teaches him to seek his best good. Religion is the science which tells us how to produce the highest results, and as such no man can afford to be indifferent to it.

If you traverse the sea you need a compass and a chart. If you travel through a strange country you want a guide book. If you hope to attain eminence in any profession and to reap profit from it you must make yourself familiar with the fundamental principles of that profession. For a precisely similar reason, and with precisely the same end in view, you must know what you want to do and how it ca.n be most easily done when you stand on the threshhold of your career and look forward with hope. You want religion, but it must be a religion of common-sense. House building and character building are governed by the same principles. In both cases the task is difficult —that is, if you are to have a house that will be convenient or a character that will prove satisfactory. If you slight your house you will never have what you want, and if you slight your character you will never become what you hope to be. There are pretty stern laws underlying both structures, and it is better to take pains while building than to have pain after the work is completed. There is, however, one serious difference between these two undertakings. If you build a house and don’t like it, you can get rid of it, though perhaps at a loss ; but if you build a character and don’t like it, you will find yourself in very serious trouble. Your character is really yourself, and if you don’t like yourself, when the time for careful examination arrives you will be compelled either in this or in some other world to take the whole thing down, even to the foundation stones, and build all over again.

The text is rather startling in its intimations. Think of yourself as standing on some lofty vantage ground of the future life, with eyes brightened by new powers of vision and a mind that sees critically and judges impartially—think of yourself looking back on what you have done in this life with the consciousness that you have been a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. God gave you the plan, and you built in accordance with it. You Avere wise enough to knoAv that you kneAv very little, and so took your corner stones from the divine quarry of the Sermon on the Mount. You were no bungler, but a master workman, and though your house is not perfect, still it shows honest endeavour and the ambition to do the best you could. That is my idea of heaven, for heaven is within, not Avithout. When a man has such feelings in his heart he is already in heaven, Avhether he lives in this world or in any other world, Such a man is accepted of God, Avhatever his colour, or hj.s social position, or his creed. Then, again, think of yourself awaking from the sleep of death and after becoming used to the new environment looking back on your past life and recognising the awful fact that it is a direful failure. The winds have beat against that house and it fell, and great was the fall of it. You see A\ T hat God did for you and lioav wretchedly you undid yourself. What regrets must torment you, and how you Avill hate yourself ! A life deliberately spoiled and despoiled, wasted, wrecked. And all because you had no plan, or, having one, built in defiance of it. That is my idea of hell, and I can conceive of no agony more poignant than for such a man to look from the face of a pitying Father to his oavu desperate failure amid the opportunities of his mortal life. Hell is simply the displeasure of God mingled with your condemnation of yourself. Brimstone fires are nothing in comparison with the flames of remorse and self-reproach. Build your character just as you would build a home. Solid masonry and sound timber! The labour done by a workman that needeth not to be ashamed! God and Christ and the angels will then come and take up their abode with you, and Avhen you step out of the earthly tabernacle you will be welcomed by the glorious company above.