THE SUNDAY CIRCLE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21734, 27 August 1932, Page 7

THE SUNDAY CIRCLE

RELIGIOUS READING FOR THE HOME 1SPEND TO SAVE. Ye who have the gift of health, Spend! Ye who are the stewards of wealth, Spend! Eat'not of the bread that’s doled, Clutch not at your phantom gold, You will lose the thing you hold — Spend! Spend! Spend! Do you seek your life to save? Spend! Is it happiness you crave? Spend! Someone spent to give you birth, Spend and show what you are worth, Hide no talent in the earth — Spend! Spend! Spend! Around the planet flash the word, “Spend!” In every land let it be heard, “ Spend! ” , . i , Plough the hillside and the plain, Scatter wide'your store of grain; Rejoicing ye shall come again— Spend! Spend! Spend! —J. Lewis Milligan. PRAYER. Holy and ever-blessed God, by Whose gift and providence we are sustained in fife and marvellously assisted, we praise Thee and thank Thee for all Thy mercies. For Thy goodness that created us; tor Thy daily faithfulness which is the foundation of all our security: for Thy discipline, gentle, severe, understanding, that has chastened us and recalled us from excess and foolishness and disregard of Thee; for Thy patience, which has survived our repeated failures and broken pledges; and in all and through all and over all for Thy holy and besetting Love, like the love of Thy Son Christ Jesus to those who loved Him and to those who rejected Him when fox a season He was with us, God manifest in the flesh. Grant unto us, O Lord, and maintain as a quick and living impulse in our souls, a powerful sense of all this goodness and mercy; that we may run in the way of Thy Commandments, and acquit ourselves in this present world as they must for whom this presl- - world is a passing tiling, a veil, a place of training, a gateway to Thy nearer Presence; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

A TEXT FOR EACH DAY’S MEDITATION.' Sunday.—" Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: Though your sing be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” —Isaiah 1: 18. Monday.—“ I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine Own sake, and will not remember thy sins. Put Me in remembrance; let us plead together; declare thou, that thou mayest be justified.”—lsaiah 43: 25 and 26. Tuesday.—“He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes.we are healed.” —Isaiah 53: 5. Wednesday,—"l will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against Me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against Me.”—Jeremiah 33: 8. Thursday.—“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And ye shall be My people, and I will be your God.”— Ezekiel 36: 26 and 28. Friday,—“ Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He retaineth not His anger for ever, because He delighteth in mercy. Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.” —Micah 7: 18 and 19. Saturday. —“ Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My Word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, bath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” —John 5: 24. —H. R. HIGGENS, in A. C. W. SOME SEED THOUGHTS! The only faith that wears 'well .and holds its colour in all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience. —Lowell. * * * The direct foe of courage is the fear itself, not the object of it! And the man who can overcome his own terror is a hero and more.—George MacDonald. * * * God is not dumb, that He should speak no more; If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness And find’st not Siuai, ’tis thy soul is poor. —Lowell. ❖ * * Life is a mission. Every other definition of life is false, and leads all who accept it astray. Religion, science, philosophy, though still at variance upon many points, all agree in this, that every existence is an aim. —Mazzini. * * * Prayers are heard in heaven very much in proportion to our faith. Little faith will get very great mercies, but great faith still greater. —C. H. Spurgeon. THE CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. The annual report of th? Lord’s Day Observance Society, entitled “ Our Year Book, 1932” (6d, post free), recounts much active work, in the form of lectures, sermons in churches, and “ talks ” to boys and girls, for the furtherance of the religious use of the Lord’s Day. The national campaign against the . Sunday opening of kinemas and other places of .amusement is described. Mention is also

made of local fights, which have resulted in stopping Sunday games, fairs, dog races, boxing contests, and other desecration of the Lord’s Day in a number of places. “A VOICE OUT OF THE BUSH." “ I have been told many times," said Bishop W. F. M’Dowell in a recent speech at Cleveland, Ohio, “ the story of a woman who belonged to my own church. She was the least bigoted Methodist I ever knew well. She would wince if anyone boasted of the church. And yet many times eho said in my hearing that if she should waken some morning and find that overnight the -church had ceased to be,, she would start right out and reorganise it before noon. “And this thing Was a wonder to me until she gave me the reason for it in words like these: ‘Our church, like every other, gives Jesus Christ a contact with the world and an instrument to use in the world for His eternal redemptive purposes in the world that no other gives to Him. fie must not lose them. If at any hour of day or night He needs us for any redemptive task anywhere, He ought to be able to reach out for us even in the dark and lay His hands on us for His use.’ And as I listened to those words <it seemed to me that I was standing by a new bush that : burned, and was hearing voice coming out of the bush.” INSPIRED ILLUMINATION. •And Shakum and the son of Shakum stood in the midst of a live-stock shop considering a birthday present. And the eon of Shakum, having meditated upon a guineapig and a hedgehog, was much drawn to a snake. Then did the heart of Shakum fail, and an adjournment for lemonade and quiet thought was proposed. And 10, after three deep draughts,‘the son of Shakum said: “Dad, do you think there is much comradeship in a snake? I rather vote for a couple of pigeons.”—M., in C.W. ' A REPLY IN AN EPIGRAM. When a young speaker at the Eastbourne Brotherhood Conference eaid that the churches were antagonistic to • the Brotherhood, Mr J. 6. Beaumont, of Epsom, replied epigramatically; “I have been, in the Brotherhood Movement 40 years. I have never known a brotherhood that was antagonistic to the church to be successful and X have never known a church that was antagonistic to the brotherhood to thrive." THE SCOTTISH CONTINUING CHURCH. Dr Griffith-Jones had a great experience as a visiting delegate at the annual Assembly of the United Free Church of Scotland (Continuing). He was invited to speak on ‘‘The Justification and Function of a Nonconformist.” “I was profoundly impressed,” he .writes, “with the character and spirit, of the , assembly. ... I found an assembly of ministers and delegates numbering at least 600 persons, full of enthusiasm and passion for a great cause in which they believe with heart and soul." CONVERSION A' PROCESS. “ Conversion is not a definite act done once for all,” says the Rev. James' Reic in “ The Record of Christian Work,” “ buv a process that goes on and on, bit by bit as long as life Igsts. I believe that Pan had a good dead of converting to he <tanj in him after his first change, the fair change-over.”