THE SUNDAY CIRCLE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20086, 30 April 1927, Page 5

THE SUNDAY CIRCLE.

RELIGIOUS READING FOR THE HOME THE POET. By Witter Bymn«». A poet lived in Galilee Who«e mother dearly knew Him, And Hi* beauty like a cooling tree Drew away people to Him. He loved the speech of simple men And little children’s laughter. He came, they always came again, He went —they followed after. He had sweet-hearted things to say, And He was solemn only When people were unkind that day) He’d stand there straight and lonely And tell them what they ought to do; “Love other folk,” Ho pleaded, “As you love me and I love you I” But almost no one heeded. A poet died in Galilee. They stared at Him and slew Him. What would they do to you and me If we should say we knew Him?

A PRAYER FOR A FRIENDLY SPIRIT. Our Heavenly Father, we confess before Thee that wo are not as friendly and as kindly as we ought to be. The world is full of Thy children and we have been so little interested in most of them, end have done so little to reveal to them Thy great love and kindliness which is supposed to be living and moving in our hearts. And we know that go many of these, Thy children, who are all about us, have their cares and trouble, and anxieties, and they need the help and uplift that come from the sympathy and understanding of their fellows more than they need anything else in the world. Help ns for the fututre not to shut our eyes and ears and hearts to those appeals for human sympathy and friendliness as we have too often done in the days that are past. Help us to prow a spirit that is quick to respond to that i felt need for human friendship, which we know every other man has because we feel : it so often ourselves. And do Thou help us to remember more constantly than we have been in the habit of doing, that failure to love our friends and neighbours, and those with whom we have to do in the every day of life in that fine human and kindly way, can never be atoned for by any punctilious service of a so-called religious character. Help us always to prove our love to Thee by the spirit we show to Thy other children, for we know that there is no other or better way of doing it than that. Amen. GOD THE FATHER. The Aberdeen Y.M.C.A has organised a series of meetings for men only dealing with man’s belief in a Diety. The address at the first meeting was given by Principal Cairns of the United Free Church College. Everything, said the Principal in a man’s life, depended on his idea of God, If they had a false, narrow, and distorted conception of God they would themselves become folse, narrow, and distorted, because men became like what they worshipped. When a nation’s thought of God wont wrong, everything went wrong. Principal Cairns went on to say that in. all ages the human race had believed in a power that was over everything. During the war they saw that inen who were mocking and scoffing at religion at the base camps wont up the lino, • and the moment they had to cross the parapet there was, declared Dr Oaims, hardly a man in the British army that did not pray. That was a silent confession that there was something in the universe more powerful than high explosives;- Everyone of them, ho said, had their own idea of right or wrong. The greatest discovery of the human race before Jesus Christ, was when they linked up these two things—the tremendous power that was behind everything and the belief that Tie was a good and righteous Being. That, said the Principal, was a most wonderful act of faith, and the human race began to move out of darkness into light when it fused these two things together. The first people to do that were the Hebrews, and they had humanity after them. Jesus came -into the groat Hebrew story and gave God the name of Father. By that Jesus meant that mankind were alien to God as sons, that God loved them and that He would provide and oars for them like a father.

The teaching of Jesus Christ about the Fatherhod of God went deep. The ideal life for everyone said Principal Cairns, was to do as the disciples did to fjet into personal face to face relations with the God and Father of their Lord Jesus Christ. That kind of life was religion nothing else was. Jesus was miles ahead of the human race as a Son of Man and to follow Him in hi* filial love of God was to be in the vanguard of humanity.—J.L. DR FOSDIOK’3 WARNING TO AMERICA. In a very outspoken sermon preached on a recent' Sunday morning in New York, Dr Fosdiok pointed out the grave responsibility fastened upon America by her great prosperity. He said the hardest thing that a man or a nation had to loam was ■ not how to face poverty, but how to abound. “The possession of excessive prosperity,” said Dr Fosdiok, “habitually begets pride and arrogance. Who can watch America to-day end not see that we are tempted to swagger through the world? We are obviously displaying all the symptoms of a very prosperous people who have not learned how to abound. Some nations have been mined by poverty. But the list of such nations is short and sweet compared with the list of nations ruined by success. In our national history we have proved more than once that we can sustain hardship. Now we are asked to face another kind of problem altogether. What excessive prosperitv is doing to our moral and mental stability already seems plain. Something has gone deeply wrong with the moral fibre of this nation.’’ THE BIBLE. When wo read a confession or a catechism we feel that it is very far away. The truth it embodies is remote from the beating of the human heart. But the wonderful thing about the Bible is that it is not only the most divine of books. It is that, but it is also the most human. It cornea right into these sinful lives of ours, portraying them and understanding them. There is the throb of the human heart in it as well as the throb of the great heart of God Our joys and sorrows, our victories and failures, our hours of triumph and the shadows on them, all these are mirrrj*ied_ on the Bible page. I believe in the inspiration of the Bible. I can never treat it just like other books. When other books_ find me as the Bible does I shall bo willing to place them on a level. It is one great mark of inspiration that the Bible is not far away from life.—Rev. G. IT. Morrison. D. D. BIBLE CLASS CAMPS. The Rev. E. P. Blaminea, general secretary of the young people’s movement in connection with the Methodist Church of New Zealand, in a recent interview gave some interesting facts in connection with the youth matters of the church. He stated that in New Zealand the youth movement in the various churches was a particularly unique feature throughout the Dominion, and this was seen especially in the Bible class movement, whieh had sprung up in the past 25 years, and now numbered some 22,000 in the various churches that had taken it up. The afterwar years were generally considered to ho difficult from a _ religious standpoint, but in the Methodist Church especially those years had witnessed a phenomenal growth in the movements for young men and women. In this connection the annual Easter camps had become a conspicuous feature, 35 such gatherings of young people having been held under the auspices of his church this year, with the record attendance of approximately 1050 young men and 1000 ’-cuing women. As regards the Methodist camps in Canterbury, the attendances this Easter were ns follow: Of young men. 201 at ICaiapoi and 55 at Woodbury (Geraldine I, while young women's Bible class camps were held at Oxford with 41. at Governor’s Bay with 2S, at Willowhy with 45, and at Tiinaru with 07 in attendance respectively. The West Coast wn-. i anted by two camps at Kerflop, comprising 47 y ung women and 10 young men The Otago figures are also related, showing that young men's c,linos were held at Wyndham (Southland! and Waitati. with attendances of 40 and 50 respectively, while at Mosgicl .*•7 .-cun" women were in tamn and 31 at BiuT.