THE SUNDAY CIRCLE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22114, 18 November 1933, Page 5

THE SUNDAY CIRCLE

RELIGIOUS . READING FOR THE HOME A PRAYER. We know the paths wherein our feet should press, Across our hearts are written Thy decrees; Yet now, 0 Lord, be merciful to bless With more than these. Grant us the will to fashion as we feel. Grant us the strength to labour as we know, Grant us the purpose, ribb’d and edged with steel, To strike the blow. Knowledge we ask not—knowledge Thou hast lent, But, Lord, the will —there lies our bitter need, Giv e us to build above the deep intent The deed, the deed. —John Drinkwater. PRAYER. Free us from our doubts and disheartenments. Lo, how we walk in a world of mystery beyond our comprehension! Lighten our darkness with insight, and clothe our mysteries with meaning. Let them never frighten or dismay us. Quicken in us confidence that even where we do not know the explanation there is an explanation and that the world as Thou seest it i a not aimless but purposeful. Drive, out our fearful doubts with a fresh faith. Free us from our sins. We would have honesty to face the worst about ourselves. We have defeated Thy purpose in our lives and hurt our fellow men. We could have been transparent to Thy* shining so that through us this world could have been a fairer place and the faces of our friends more glad- We have clouded our lives with selfish and discouraged moods and have not been ready for Thy radiance. Grant us, we beseech Thee, sincerity of conscience. Send us out chastened, penitent, forgiven.—Amen. A TEXT FOR EACH DAY’S MEDITATION, Sunday: My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, 0 Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up.—Psalm v. S'. Monday’; They looked unto him, and were lightened; and their faces were not ashamed.—Psalm xxxiv, 5. Tuesday: Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. —Isaiah xlv, 22, • Wednesday: Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. —■ Titus ii, 13. Thursday: Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.—Hebrews xii, 1,2. Friday: Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we ’ receive a full reward.—2 John viii. , Saturday; What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? —2 Peter iii, 11, 12. THE GLORY OF PERFECT FREEDOM. Now once there were two young ladies who felt that all restrictions and restraints were too utterly Victorian. They had also a sports model. And first they drove on the crown of the road. Then a little faster on the right-hand side. Later they felt that traffic control lights were an affront, and, finally, they performed several , manoeuvres upon the king’s highway for which no signals have as yet been invented. And now—alas —the sports model looks like a dented biscuit tin, and the young ladies lie in bath chairs at the seaside with noses embroidered with many stichcs. —M. in C.W. A KINEMA STAR’S RELIGION. " When I was a child,” writes Mary Pickford in an article in the August Forum on “ What Religion Means to Me,” ,f I thought of God as a severe old gentleman with a long white beard . . . Who spent most of His time trying to catch people, and particularly me, in mistakes and sins for the sole purpose of punching them.” Since then, Miss Pickford says, she has come to understand that the keyword of Christianity is love. “ The world is grasping for something beyond the tottering material effects. It wants religion, it needs religion, but more than anything else. I believe, it ■needs a restatement of religion, the lifting of a helpful and beautiful thing out of intricate definitions and gestures into something as simple and as useful as breathing.” POSSESSIONLESS. Mr P. E. Tate, acting sub-agent for the British and Foreign Bible Society on the River Amazon, writes: “Getting off the beaten track . . . we came across such poverty and wreehedness as can hardly be conceived to exist anywhere. I have never before seen people quite so ‘ possessionless.’ Often they had absolutely nothing of any description which could be exchanged for the Scriptures. In other cases, we accepted a great variety of objects, both animate and inanimate. Rubber, nuts, and skins of the latter class,

and parrots, strange birds, the inevitable chicken, and even a rodent of the former.” Dr Fred B. Smith of New York, exmoderator of the American Congregational Council, has been preaching for two Sundays at the City Temple, London. Part of his holiday lie spent in Scotland, and he says that he was struck by the evidences of increased sobriety that he saw in the Scottish cities on Saturday nights. Ho believes that America will now have to _ tackle the liquor problem on British lines of high taxes and restricted hours, along with educational propaganda. He thinks the prohibition cause is lost in the United States and that • before the end of the year nearly all the States —even the old “ dry ” ones—will have voted for repeal. A DIVINE CONDUCTOR. “Let us think of the church as an orchestra,” said Dean Inge at the Modern Churchmen’s Conference, “in which the different churches play on different instruments, while a Divine Conductor calls the tune.” GENERAL HIGGINS’S BEACH CAMPAIGN. General Higgins, of the Salvation Army, bag concluded a 10 days’ beach campaign at 22 principal resorts round the English coast. Vast crowds, in some places computed to be not less than 5000, have listened to his message. The crowds, by their responsiveness and their singing, have given indications of a widespread turning again in great numbers to the consolation and realities of religion. This opinion has been shared by many ministers of religion who have been present at the gatherings and have spoken to the general of their impressions. PRINTED WRITING. Mr George Cowan, publishing superintendent of the British and Foreign Bible Society, in an account of the manner in which the Scriptures are issued by the society, describes some of the methods of production. • For some languages of the East, with their peculiar /characters, type is not always obtainable, he says. A native writer is asked to copy out the version of the Bible or Testament in the native characters on paper sent from London cut to the exact size. These written pages are sent to London, photographed, and copied on zinc. These zinc plateg are then used to print from. The result is an exact printed copy of the writer’s work.