THE SUNDAY CIRCLE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18447, 7 January 1922, Page 5

THE SUNDAY CIRCLE.

RELIGIOUS READING FOR THE . HOME. IN MANUS TUAS, DOMINE. Loose not thy hold, O hand of God Or utterly we faint and fall. The way is rough, the way is blind, And buffeted with stormy wind. Thick darkness veils above, below, From whence we come, to what we go. Feebly we grope o’er rock and sand, But still go on, confiding ail. Lord, to Tty hand. In that strong bold salvation is; Its touch is comfort in distress, Cure for all sickness, balm for ill, And energy for heart and will; Securely held, unfaltering. The soul can walk at ease and sing, And fearless tread each unknown strand. Leaving each large thing and each less, Lord, in Thy bond. O might Friend, forever near! 0 heavenly Help! so soon forgot, So oft rebelled against and grieved. Unthanked, distrusted, disbelieved; Forgive us all and hold us fast Till dawning lights the dark at last, And looking back we understand How we were kept and knew it not, Lord, by Thy hand. Susan Coolidgc. A PRAYER. O God Our Father, Who givest us richly all things to enjoy, teach and help us in everything to give thanks to Thee for Thy goodness and loving kindness, to us all. Open our eyes that we may see and understand how we are in debt to Thee for ill that we have and are. Help us to understand in how many ways we are dependent upon our fellow-men. May all , die'love and goodness that fill the world awaken a glad in our hearts, that we too may scatter light and joy wherever we go. Lift up our hearts to the Cross, and may'we so understand its message that pride may be slain within us, and a sense of our utter dependence upon Thee be awakened in all our hearts. And help us to show something of oUr gratitude to Thee by showing loving kindness to those who have need. We ass it for Jesus’ sake. Amen. “OB LOOK WE FOR ANOTHER.” There is something not short of magnificent in the persistency of faith in the presence of disappointments. The message of John the Baptist to Jesus raises the question whether he is the Promised One, but it does not for an instant raise any question about the Promised One himself. This may bo another disappointment ; there have been a multitude of them in the past; but when faith finds it has moved down a bliqd alley and can go no farther, it patiently picks its .way back again to the main road and travels on, assured that somewhere there is a goal—the goal it has been looking for. John may have looked at the wrong Figure, but be will continue to look. Sometime, somewhere, the Promised One will appear and men like John will keep watching for him. That is to the conventional mind the most baffling element in faith. Scientific men are seldom patient with thepersistent search for “ perpetual motion.” They know that the very statement of the problem involves a contradiction, and' they know that its “secret” does not exist because the thing itself cannot exist. Yet here/are men constantly searching for it. They live and die in garrets, working on mysterious machines that tele them on to the quest by barely, missing the thing they try to make them do. Each day they are sure the next will bring it, and. they are found dead before their machines,’ starved, heart-broken. Yet if they could come to life again, they would give it one more .trial!'Call it lunacy; yet it w only an. exaggeration of the thing that sets science forward. One man still persists in expecting the solution of some vexed ,problem where a .hundred accept the mistaken effort or the blind alley aa_ sufficient evidence that the quest is a failure. But progress lies with that one main who sees the experiment fail and the carefully wrought out scheme break down and yet keepa looking for the goal on some other' track, who feqls in his nones the way will yet,open, who asks every experiment: “Art thou• that which shall come, or shall 1 look for another?” It is so always with the world’s idealists. Why will they not accept the recalcitrant facts of human nature and history? Sensible men have given up long ago; they know when they have had enough. The path is strewn with _ failures, false hopes, mistaken _ acclamations—yet thdie idealists keep footing for the'dream to dome true. As they see the hope by which, they have lived falling to the ground, they do not ask whether the whole thing may not be an illusion; not at all, they begin at onoe looking around for some other path. Then one day one of these idealists hits on’ the scheme that' works. None of his opposers would ever have hit on it. It is the man who still expects Who is made the Forerunner. It may be the ideal of world peace or of human brotherhood or of unselfish service. The history of the world registers large pathos in the quests of earnest men for those ideals. Their paths have led astray; just when they thought the goal was in sight or barely around the corner, the alley has.closed—it was not the highway after all. Some of their companions gave up the quest; it was of no use. But the idealists have soon recovered their, courage and renewed their search. Something has made them unmistakably sure that, the goal is lying out yonder and there is a road to_ it. 1 They or some later travellers will find it. This may not be “ho that shall come,” but they will ‘Took for another” if this is a mistake. Is pot thW an inherent element in .Christian livings How much of the teaching'of Jesus seems yet unattempted in any large ' way 1 How many items catch the scorn of wise men because they are not practical. They may do for the millennium, but these are very different days. Attempts'to attain the perfection of the teaching are recorded in failures on ' every side. Those who have tried it have become fanatics, or impossible monomaniacs, or have been swept away in the tide of human life. PJenty. of “sane” men have abandoned the effort. But the failures become the unavoidable challenge pf the Christian believer. If the way has not yet been found, that merely opens the door for search in another direction. Sometime, somewhere, the way will be found; the goat of • God’s, purpose, will, be t achieved.—The Continent. ' ' ’

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS IN AMERICA. The Presbyterian Synod of Washington, U.S.A., baa initiated a movement among the various religious denominations of the State to submit to the Supreme Court of the United States a test case to decide whether, under the constitution of that country, the Bible can legally be excluded from public schools. The State of Washington has officially excluded the Bible from its schools, evidently to the detriment of the youth of that State. Tire presentment declares that within a few years after prohibiting the Bible from Washington schools it became necessary to create juvenile courts, jails,., and correctional institutions, and so great was the demand for their use that people’ in tile town and city began to make efforts to supply Bible teaching and moral training of youth attending State schools and colleges, and were knocking at the, hack doors of their schools to which the law required their children to be committed, for education, seeking recognition of Bible instruction. The plea urged will be based on the Declaration of Independence. The Presbyterians, claim that the declaration is a covenant between the American nation and God, and that the study of the Bible by American children is essential to an understanding of the covenant as well as to a full knowledge of God. “To exclude the Bible from tpe public schools,” the Presbyterians contend' in their presentment preparatory to an appeal, “is to violate' one of the essential clauses of the opening paragraph of the Declaration ,of Independence.” ... In the State of Washington, the Attorney-general and later the! Supreme Court have rendered an opinion in which the Bible in effect is adjudged a “sectarian book” and decreed to ’be unconstitutional to read or teach in the State schools. The Presbyterians declare this ruling erroneous, and that the State constitutional provisions so constructed are void as in conflict with and repugnant to the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

NEWS ITEMS. .'The gospel message is sweeping Korea so rapidly that it is believed it the money were available to support evangelists a church could be established in practically every village of the country within one year. Madam Kaji Yajima, for 40 years principal of the Presbyterian Mission’s school for girls in Tokyo, Japan, came to America to attend the Armament Conference in Washington, In spite of her advanced age of 89° Madam Yaiimamado an address at the Young Women’s Christian Association.' She spoke through Mrs Topping, a missionary of the Baptist Board, who is serving as her interpreter on this visit, ,