Restful Thoughts For a Quiet Hour

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12394, 13 March 1926, Page 12

Restful Thoughts For a Quiet Hour

IF WE BUT KNEW

If we hut knew that through the closing door, Some one we love would enter never more, Would we not hasten with our richest store, , i If we but knew. If we but knew that from the main ket place, i We soon should meet some kind familiar face: Would our cold greeting net be touched with grace, If we but knew. , If-we but knew some heart beside our own, Had i walked in dark Gethsameno alone, • Oh, with what bounty would our love be shown, If we but knew. Oh Saviour, patient, understanding, kind, Thy sheep we are out in the winter wind, Forgive ns that we are so wilful blind. Teach ns to know. GOD’S PROMISE TO ISRAEL And the Lord shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be ’left few in number among the heathen, whither the Lord- shall lead you. ’ And there- ye shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither hear, nor see, nor eat, nor smellBut if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God. thou shalt find him, if thou seek Him with all thy heart an(l with all thy soul. When thou art in tribulation. and all these things are come unph thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy Gods end shalt b 9 obedient unto His voice; . (For the'-Lord thy God is a merciful Gpd): he will not forsake thee, neither destroy fhee. nor forget the covenant of they' fathers which he swore unto them. —peuteronomy. A PRAYER O God, Thou hast appointed our doily task: may we perform it gladly and thankfully, looking up constantly for Thy sufficient grace. Give us the strength of endurance. Give us .wisdom and understanding. Give us vision that looks not on the things of transience and turmoil; bpt on the things that endure. < Help us to hear one another s burdens joyfully. May we never envy. Enlarge our . hearts with a divine charity, that we may love all-that Thou lovest. And, O God, enable us to walk that we may commend Thy blessed Gospel. r Encompass all our loved ones,. with .the arms of infinite love and .everlasting- strength. Bless all, our kindred and all men. For Jesus Christ’s sake. —Amen. x

ELIJAH’S RAPTURE (A one-minute sermon by Rev. J. R-. Miller, D.P.) It came to pass when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind.— 2 Kings, 2-1. When a good man leaves the world he does not cease to live. The Lord took Elijah to live in another country. We ere able actually- to verify this statement. We have but to turn over to the Gospels to see him again, nearly nine hundred years later, alive, and active still, in God’s work. It is just as true of the Christians who die in our homes as it was of this old prophet, that the Lord takes them up into heaven, and r that they live on m bjessedness for ever. One cold autumn day I sawtan empty bird’s nest on a 'tree. It looked desolate and forsaken. But I knew the birds that once were there were living yet, living now in the warm south, beyond ' the reach of winter’s storm*, and singing there their sweet songs. There is an empty love nest in.many a home/ in many a heart, hut we know that the dear one who is gone is living

with God in heaven. There is comfort in this.

There is h suggestion in the way God took Elijah from earth. It was “by a whirlwind”; a whirlwind suggests terror. But this wild storm was God’e chariot, and it took the prophet up into heaven. Death always seems terrible to nature. Sometimes it cornea in form of special terror. But, however, it may come, it takes God’e child home to glory.

THE TWO GIFTS

There is a gift of a beautiful face, And there is a gift of a heart of grace J; Which would you have—now tell me ‘ true— Which of these gifts were it left to you? The beautiful face will fade some day. But the heart of grace will last for ayej So, better a gift of endless worth Than the dearest treasure in all the earth. All cannot have a beautiful face, j But we each may possess a heart ot j grace: t This wonderful, priceless gift is. free To the king and to beggar, to you and to fne. So she whose face will never be fair Needs not to give one sigh of despair, For she may, if she choceea, have at heart of graora Which is worth far more than the ’ loveliest face. GREAT THOUGHTS What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life—to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent, unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting P—George Eliot.

How often will the soothing word, and the sympathetic manner comfort the little one, in his oftentimes imaginary sorrow 1 Oh, sweet sympathy t vffiich can reach the. youngest heart, and draw it unconsciously to oneself. —R. Ellis.

Love shows me the opulence of nature by disclosing to me In my friend a hidden wealth and I infer an equal depth of good in every other direction. —Emerson.

Years will make a change. As the summer grows in fierce, heat, the balminess of the violet banks of spring is lost in the odours of a thousand .flowers; the heart as it gains in age, loses freshness, hut wins breadth.

THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD I The production of the film iUustrative of. the life story of the famous African missionary and explorer, David Livingstone, reminds a correspondent of a London journal that a sister-in-law of the famous pioneer. Miss Jane Moffatt, is still alive at the advanced vage of eighty-four years.. She is the | only survivor of the family- One hunIdrea and seven Tears ago her father, |*or. ’ Robert Moffatt, landed at Capetown to begin his labours in the dark ' continent. Moffatt and Livingstone between them did much to open the pathway for the Gospel messenger*, who in our day are doing attch splendid work in South and Central Africa. ‘ Dr. Hubert Wilson and . SB sister, .grandchildren Vef David Living* stone.'' are still Carrying' bit - tho rails- , sionary traditions of the family . ss members of the staff of the Livungstone Mission of the United .Free Church of Scotland-.

Mr“ John Kier, manager of the Aberdeen Blind School, who bat been blind since he was 44 years of age, when a splinter of steel entered his eye whfle he was playing in his father’s smithy, : has recently died. At. the age of nine he went to the school for the blihd in = | Aberdeen and’ ultimately became, 1 overseer in the basket-making de- ! pertinent. a post he held for 26 - 'years. For many years he: represent- ’ ed the blind of. Aberdeen on tare Trades Council, on whicb b~dy he hag, served/as vioe-Dresldent and president* In 1898 he was president of the Scottish Trades Union Congress, and h* ; hna nlso served a* rHairaiM .of Aberdeen School Board.