THE SUNDAY CIRCLE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21952, 13 May 1933, Page 5

THE SUNDAY CIRCLE

RELIGIOUS READING FOR THE HOME HE WAS THE OUTDOOR SON OF GOD I The Master was a man who knew The feel of rain, the touch of dew, The mystic kiss of midnight air Upon His face upraised In prayer. He was a man .of sun and stars ; He knew the Pleiades and Mars; The silver of the Milky Way; The night, the light, the dawn, the day. His feet were stained by dusty ways; His cheeks were brown as autumn days; His skin It had the look of one Who travelled under wind and sun. He heard the harps and harmonies Of Lebanon’s old cedar trees Where, up among the lofty limbs, Were choirs chanting heavenly hymns. To Him there were no sweeter tones Than water wandering over stones; To Him no sweeter symphony Than murmuring, blue Galilee. His hair was washed by summer showers; He bent to kiss the wayside flowers; All Jordan’s Shore was sacred sod To Christ, the outdoor Son of God 1 —William L. Stldger, from , the Christian Advocate, New York. PRAYER. 7 Almighty God, our Father, who hast, given to us the perilous gift'of choice, do Thou lift up our hearts and minds, so that when we are celled upon to make decisions we may act as seeing Thee Who art invisible. By many a pointed saying in Thy Holy Word, by many an example to encourage us and by many an example to restrain us, Thou wouldst put us upon our guard against the too great power of passing and immediate things. . The things that are seen are temporal; nevertheless, we confess that it is over such passing things we arc most apt to lose our peace. . The things which are unseen are eternal; nevertlieless, under the pressure and allurement of the other, we forget that a day is never far away, when we shall have only what we have in secret and with The.e. Forgive ua this miserable inconsequence between what we know and what we pursue; and mqke us no more children, but men and women in Christ Jesus; to Whom, with Thyself and the Holy Ghost, be all praise foi ever. ' Amen. . A TEXT FOR BACH DAY’S MEDITATION. “GOD OMNIPOTENT." Sunday.- —" There is none like unto the God of Jeshurum, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in His excellency' on the sky. The Eternal God is thy refuge and underneath are the Everlasting Arms.” —Deut. 33:20 and 27, Monday.—“ Tbine, 0 Lord, is the great ness and the power, and the glory and the victory, and the majesty. In Thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all.”—1 Chron, 29:11 and, 12. , . Tuesday.—“ The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him. —2 Chron. 16:9. ! “Whom Thou hast redeemed by Thy great power, and by Thy strong hand. Nehemiah 1:10. . _ , ... Wednesday.—“o Lord God of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto _ Thee. Thou hast a mighty arm; strong is lay hand, and high is Thy right hand. Psalm 89:8 and 13. “ He hath showed his people the power of His work?."—Psalm 111:6. • Thursday.—" Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, ajid meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains ; Jn scales, and the hills in a balance. Isaiah 40:12. , , ~,. Friday.—” Hast thou not heard, that the Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary. —lsaiah 40:28. “ My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.”—lsaiah 40:10. Saturday.—“ I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass: I have purposed it, I will also do it. —Isaiah 46:11. “With God nothing is impossible. He that is mighty hath done to me great things.” —Luke 1:37 and 49. ___ —H. R. Higgens, in A.C.W. SOME THOUGHTS OF MOTHER. "To think of mother is to recall her unselfish devotion, her limitless, unfaltering love through good and evil report, never wavering, but growing stronger with the years; and to remember that she asks nothing in return for her sell. She asks only of us and for us that we be good men and women. If we tail she docs not love us less, but more. Wonderful, constant, miraculous mothers love! ’’—John Bushe. . “No man can fulfil his God-given mission among men if he neglects the memory of his mother; if he casts aside her faith and blessed example. The man too proud to hold clear his mother’s sacrifices, his mother’s love and faith, is only fat tor treason.” —Ira E. Robinson. „ “My mother was the making of me, said Thomas A. Ediion, on one occasion. “She was so true, so sure of me; and 1 felt that I had someone to Jive for, someone 1 must not disappoint.” “ All that I am or hope to be, _ said Lincoln, after be had become President, “I owe to my angel mother.’ “It is a strange fact that our mothers, the moulders of the world, should get so little credit and should be so seldom mentioned among the worlds achievers. r j’h e world secs only the successful soil; the mother is but a rung in the ladder, upon which ho has climbed. Her name or face is never seen in the papers; only her son is landed and held up to our admiration. Yet it was that face in the background that made bis success possible.”—Orison Swett Mamlcn. The eminent scholar, Robert Cecil, ot London, said that when ho was a youth he tried his utmost to be an infidel. But his mother’s beautiful and eloquent Christianity was too much for him. He could never answer that. A YEAR of testing. In a recent letter from the Men’s Hospital Sianfu, Shansi, Dr Handley Stockley, of the Baptist Missionary Society, says * “This year for me has been one of definite testing. We started the year knowing that much of the money which became available last year would not be forthcoming this time. But now that we are nearly at the end, we realise that God has proven true to His promises once again, and though we finish with almost empty coffers, yet we have no outstanding accounts of which we are aware, and we hope to have just enough in hand locally to tide us over.” He goes

on to say: “Banditry is fearfully rife. The victims of bandits are coming in, in a steady flow. It is too sad for words. In the midst of all this turmoil there is a wonderful opportunity to tell the Word.’'—Life of Faith, ORDAINED IN THE CATHEDRAL OF UGANDA, Recently, the first native of Ruanda was ordained in Uganda Cathedral. This man, Kosea Shalita, was born near Gahini, in Belgian Ruanda, but left the country with his father while still a child. They settled in Ankole, and while attending the C.M.S. Central School, then under the charge of Canon H. M. Grace, Kosea learnt to know Christ. Me went ,on to King’s College, Budo, and before he left he responded to the call for volunteers for Ruanda. He has been doing good work, chiefly at Gahini, for the last eight years, and now has the honour of settling amongst _ his people as the first clergyman of their own race. —Life of Faith. “LOVE SUFFERBTH LONG.” Love’s long temper is seen in its endurance of tests. Many persons cross our path, whom we describe as “trying, ’ and we frequently cry that we -cannot stand them. We do not realise that we are proclaiming' a moral defeat by our very phrase. For “ trying ” means testing. The steam trials of a warship are the opportunities for exhibiting her excellence. The trying child tests your love of children. The trying guest tests your spirit of hospitality. The trying illness tests your Christian fortitude. When we say we cannot stand them, we are owning that we have failed in a test that has been permitted by our Father. —Archbishop Lees. LONDON ST. PLATE REMODELLED. An anonymous gift of £250 from a wellknown London city man, added to the Goldsmiths’ Company’s £l5O, has enabled the remodelling of the heavy set of gold Communion plate of St. Pauls Cathedral to be. carried out. Sir Edward Lutyens was commissioned some time, ago to redesign it, but it was found that £4OO worth of additional gold would be needed to carry out his design. _ The set has never been really satisfactory in Use, being too small ipr use at the high altar, and the paten was quite flat. It is so inconvenient that it has been used only twice in the past 20 years. Being too ornate, it was difficult to keep clean. In remodelling the four chalices become three, entirely of gold, but the two flagons will still be of gold and crystal. WHAT BISHOPS READ.; The Archbishop of Canterbury, speaking humorously at the S.P.C.K. Founders’ Day, said that from his brethren of the episcopal bench, piety and the study of works of devotion and worship seemed to go with a predisposition for the reading of detective stories!