Restful Thoughts for a Quiet Hour

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12643, 31 December 1926, Page 12

Restful Thoughts for a Quiet Hour

FLASHES OF THOUGHT Life is a count of losses Every year; For \the weak are heavier burdens Every year; Lost spring, witli sobs relying, Unto weary autumn’s sighing, While those we love are dying Every year; But the truer life grows nigher Every year; And it’s morning star climbs higher Every year; Earth’s hold on us grows slighter, And the heavy burden lighter. And the dawn Immortal brighter, Every year; —A. Pike • • • • When summer- comes on golden wings, And all the world on music rings, When flowers waken from their sleep, And dolphins sport within the deep, When silver stars like jewels shine, ’Tis then that lave seems most divine. —H. Gardner. Novel wait for post-mortem praire. Speak the kind words which love prompts;- ahd remember that words of loving kindness are the best possible tonic which can be given, even to the happiest- of mortals.—K. T. Woods. * « • . ■ »' The voice of our whole nature indeed, properly interpreted, is a cry after higher existence. . Tlie restless activity cif life is hut a pressing forward towards a fulness of good not to be’.found on earth, and indicates our destination, 'for a state more brightly ’beautiful than we can now conceive.— W. E. Charming. 4 NEW YEAR READING And the Lord spoke unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying: This month shall be unto you the beginning 1 of months: it-shall be the first month of the year To you. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying: In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: And if the household ho too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house -take it according to the number of the souls: every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb.

Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats: And ye shall keep it-up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take the blood, and strike it on the two side posts, and on the upper door post *of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that njght, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with hitter herbs shall they eat it.’

Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire; the head with the legs, and with the purtenance thereof. i And .ve shr.ll let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire. And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, aqd your staff in your band; and ye shall eat it in haste: it ii the Lord’s passever. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smile all the first born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are:, and when I see tlie Wood I will pass over you, and the nlague shall not be upon you to destroy yon, when I smite the land of Egypt. —Exodus, 12*1-13. NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try. my veins and my heart. Psalm 26, 2. It Is indeed well on the first day of the New Year thus to submit our heart to the Divine criticism. We do not know where the weak spot may be. Somewhere in London tlierfe is a museum of broken materials used in engineering work. This organised testing laboratory is to examine materials ■which have failed, and by practical tests to show why they failed. The museum contains hundreds of broken pieces of steel, iron, brass, wood, stone, and cement, and the reason for their failure is revealed. The Psalmist daringly, trustingly, brings his ■reason . and heart into the laboratory of God, and demands that any secret flaw therein shall bo detected and exposed. The metallurgist cannot always determine the cause of failure; again and again lie is brought face to face with the inscrutable r but the Divine heartsearchcr infallibly penetrates to tho hidden weakness, the blind spot, tbe diseased fibre. Let us, with the Psalmist, solicit “the oyes of glory,” which at once levcal and cleanse. —W. L. Vatkinson, D.D.

, A NEW YEAR HYMN AVe greet with joy the glad Net#’ Year, We hail its dawn without a fear, For Christ will guide us from above* And fill us with His perfest love; In fiercest war He’ll give us rest. The more we do the more we’re blest,' The time draws nigh when we must stand With millions more at God’s righj hand; Our days are fleeting, oh, so fast. The coming year may be our last! Then let us seek for greater power* And strike for victory every hour. f With Christ so near, we’ll brave the foe, Our garments shall be white as snow) Y/e will obtain more inward grace, And for lost souls the Cross embrace. We’:! use each talent He has given, To lead them to our God and heaven. ANON. A NEW YEAR PRAYER O God of the years that are past, and the years that are comingthrough whose hands run the fleeting sands of the present, pardon us for the errors and the sins of the days that are dead; help us in ail our thinking and doing in the days that are to be. Let us not remember too much the sorrows that have been. Lift up our heads and our hopes to the dreams and ideals that are before us, that we may rise above tlie weaknesses, meannesses, and sinfulness which do so often dog us to our fall. Give us gladness in our own time, leading ns, by Thy pity, nearer Christ; comforting us when we grow weary, by Thy love, and saving us at last through thine unending mercy. Father, take not the veil from the future. If only Thou be with us in the day that is coming, full of the unknown, it is well. Upheld us in whatsoever sorrows it may bring with it* Pity us in the trials that aw.-it us* Consecrate our gladness and our griefs together, and bold cur bands w-hen wo walk through the darkness. Whatsoever Thou dost give to us or take from us, let Thy blessing be above and about us. and keep us true men and women till we go home to Thee. There are graves ueiiiml 'us ail, O Father, and silence and darkness’where there were voices beloved and faces that we knew in days gone by. Only let us not forget that Thon are ever before us and “Shy love beside us, and we will still be brave cnouglfl to dare all that the dying days can hold* Guide us aright, O God. Thou hast given us all the world and its beauty, O our God—all the friendships and the loves, the successes and the joys that we have known. We can offer Thee only our failures, our weaknesses, our sorrows, and our sins. Have mercy upon us, and pity us’ in our confessions, 0 our Father. Help us to find again the way we have lost, to see the light that we turned from, and to acknowledge the mastery of Thy holy will. For Jesu’s sake. Amen.

NEW YEAR BLESSINGS A One-minute Sermon for the Commencement of the New Year, delivered by C. H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle, London. They did eat the fruit of the land of - Canaan that year.—Joshua 5.12. Israel’s weary wanderings .were all over, nnd the promised'rest -was attained. No more 'moving tents, fiery serpents, fierce Amalekitea, and howling wilderness: they came to the-land that flowed with milk and and they ate the old corn’ of the lbpd. Perhaps this year, dear reader, this may be tby case and mine. Joyful is the prospect, qpd if faith be in active exercise; it will- yield unalfoyed delight. To be with Jesns in the rest which _ remaineth for the people of God, is a cheering hope indeed* and to expert this glory so soon is a double Mess. Unbelief shudders at the Jordan which still rolls between us and the goodly land, but let us rest assured that we have - already experienced more ills than death at its worst can cause us. Let hs banish every fearfnl thought, and- rejoice with exceeding great joy, in tbe prospect that this year we may begin to be “for ever with the Lord.” A part of the host will this year tarry on earth, to do service for their Lord. If this should fall to our lot„ there is, no reason why the New Y'ear’a text should not still be true. “We who have believed do enter into rest.” The Holy Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance ; He gives us “glory begun below.” In heaven they are secure, and so are we preserved in Christ Jesus; there they triumph over their enemies, and we have victories too. Celestial spirits enjoy communion with their Lord, and this is not denied to ns; they rsst in His love, and we have perfect peace in Him; they hymn His praise, and it is oar privilege to bless Him too. We will this year gather celestial fruits on earthly ground, where faith and hope have made the desert like the garden of the Lord. Man did eat angels’ food of old. and why r.ot now? 0 for grace to feed on Jesus, and so to eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan this year I