GOD'S HOUSE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2524, 30 July 1902, Page 70

GOD'S HOUSE.

By R. N. Adams.

We like to think of "God's House" as a structure of massive proportions and magnificent design. More particularly if we are considering the subject in a national aspect. Such places as the splendid Temple in Jerusalem, St. Peter's in Rome, or St. Paul's in London are in harmony with our notions of what buildings entitled to that name should be.

The idea of a '"House,"' either as a dwelling place for, or a building dedicated to, the worship of the Almighty, is that it ought to inspire us with the thought of greatness and infinity, as well as of solidity and beauty.. We are accustomed to the magnificent words, "Heaven is His throne, and eaith is His footstool," and feel that there is a sense of incompatibility in such a sentence as that made use of by Jacob, "This stone shall be God"s house," when he was referring to a small thing which had served him as a pillow for his weary head.

Had he spoken his words of some mighty towering pile of rock, rearing a craggy peak hundreds of feet heavenward from the *pot on which he stood, we would have been able to appreciate the splendour of his poetic conception ; • but when we find him applying this phrase to a small stone that he could without difficulty place in any spot he wished, we begin to fear that his idea of the Deity is unworthy of a man from whom, through his children, have descended the grandest impressions of the Divine Being that have adorned the literature and inspired the minds of any age. When, therefore, we find him saying of a little stone, "This stone shall be God's house," we shrink back from the microscopic suggestion as unfit, unbecoming, and, indeed, irreverent, unless we recognise that the idea i«, "this .stone shall be the centre of Divine manifestation" ; for we must know that to Jaoob (as well as t-> ourselves) the notion of the Almighty dwelling in any building or within circunisci ibed limits was repugnant.

Until the overthrow of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, the Land of Palestine had been the especial scene of Divine display in the affairs of man. He confined Himself to communications with the prophets of I«rael, within the land of their nation. After that we find Him communicating with the prophets, far away from the house of David. Jerusalem, on its second overthrow, ceased io be any more a place of visions and messages from Heaven. Indeed, from the day that Jeremiah finally left it, Jerusalem, except for the period of the life of Christ, was little more than a heathen city. Its glory had departed, and its light had gone out.

But if we look carefully into ths history of Christianity, not holding to the beaten track of the historian through Antiocli, Alexandria, and Koine, where we may find the growth more truly of ecclesiastical power and intolerance, together with the dcclii.c of that vital missionary spirit that has ever m/irked a period of full Divine influence in the CLurcli ; if we avoid that track and follow the wanderers to the far west, we cume to a very different state of things.

The first national acknowledgment, the first complete surrender of national institutions to the power of Christian preachers, was tiie country in v kick was found the "Stone of Destiny."

In no country was the mi c eiorary enterprise of Christianity &o generally successful as in Ireland ; for in no country did the entire land so soon become effected by the preaching of the Go&pel. From north to south, from east to west, with a few notable exceptions, Ireland became a Christian community within the lifetime of its firfct missionary. King, nobles, and peasants over the whole island threw off the power of Paganism, and adopted the i:tes and, in a maivellous degree, the character of a Christian people.

It was Ireland, the home ol the '"Stone of Destiny," that became the great missionaiy centre. No sooner had it become a land of believers in the Naaarene than it became a training home for those who should go out over the Continent of Europe as harbingers of the new faith.

Irif-b. missionaries were instructed in schools conducted by devout men whose lives were given to their studies and teaching — men who were arduous in their labours to send out preachers equipped in the very be^t manner their age would permit ; to go from place to place making known to all men the new* that the wd\ to Heaven \\a- to be found by a faith m the ciuuficd Je'-us <.f X.izaieth.

The^e men. thus prepared, found their \\a\ across the Channel to France, Lurm.i:i'-, and all pait-j of Europe, and '-pent their lives in perambulating through the ccmitiies. not seeking gain, populanty, or power, but often sealing their testimony v. it'i then- blood among the L' athen they h<«d gone to in^tiuct m things of the Hereafter.

Of a tuith Ireland v>as the land in which "God'« HotiNe '" *>vjv located dining tLo«.e years of national piety and mi^ionary zeal ; and at the same time the "Stone of De^tmv ' v as established there.

In due cour-e the^e mi^Mondi les found tl.e r Ti.tv to Scotland, a;i<] made luna the headquarters of their enU-i pi i»e. Fiom there, under the it of the levired Columbi. the\ <=pre id over the Lilian] <!jle« of the mainland, and won many tinphies amon^ the clins of the north ; and subsequently turned their attention to pitching in W<i!e-. w litre they were aho MRcc.^ful in planting the .standard of the L'ro-s

Now when Fe:-gu« I of Scotland had. after anivmg in the country as a soldier of fortune, won for himself a kingdom, he re-olved in order to make '-ure his title to the Crown, and to establish for ever his dynp'ty in the tlnone of Scotland, to borrow fioin lii« father, King of Ireland, the '"Stone of Destiny,"' the true Lia Fail, that he might be crowned on it. The Stone w«s placed at lona, the centre of missionary

workers, and from that time the power of the Irish declined, while that of lona and Wales increased.

.The fame of lona grew, and the influence of its preachers extended even to Rome and Alexandria. In this way the power of Christian preachers radiated from the spot where the strange stone was deposited, and from the monastery of the Isle of lona was sent forth year after year a continuous stream of humble preachers, full of zeal, and equipped -with the best learning of the age.

Shortly after the removal of the stone to London by Edward I of England we find the commencement of brighter days of freedom and independent thought breaking forth in that country, in the work of John Wickliffe and his " Poor Preachers."

From that dai,3 onward, there has been a constant struggle for a better state of things emanating from the people of that country. The stone became the nation's Coronation Stone, and gradually the power of light against wrong has grown stronger and its influence more evident. As the centuries passed the right of man to think and speak, to believe and to teach emerged from obscurity, slowly and intermittently, ib ib tiue. until at last it stands to-day foremost in our constitution.

What i& there more conspicuous in the world at the present time than the fact that "Goel's House"' is most evidently located in England?

What good work is there that has not its centre there, even in the city of London? It matters little for what aspect of £(ood you look, you are almost sure to find iTs fountain in London.

London, with all its ills, all its poverty, all its crime, is still London, whence streams out all over the habitable globe influences of the highest good and the most permanent blessing.

"God's House is there, and from iis place of blessing it looks round on all the families of the earth, announcing the Divine benediction on the heads of every people. Aie these things merely strange coincidences, or are they evidences of the Hand of (.;«. in history and the fulfilment of His omniscient design?

Do not let it be imagined that this is an argument to prove that because the Stone of Destiny, or Jacob's Pillow, has been in the places named, therefore the Almighty has been pleased to show His favour to the inhabitants. If that were so, we might as well argue that if the stone were stolen by a foreign people, say the Japanese or the Chinese, they would prosper and become a blessing to the wkple earth, while Britain would wane ; or we might put it this way : Had Nfbuchadnezzar carried it away to Babylon, and put it in a place of safe keeping, then his empire would have preserved its greatne&s, strengthened its influence, and so prospered as to become the favoured nation of Heaven.

Such an aigument would, in the face of Scripture-leaching, be absurd and self-de&-tructive ; for the blessing of Heaven was to rest on the personal descendants of the Patriarch Israel, and the stone was merely their title-deed to power and empire. Hence where the stone and the blessing both are together, there we must also acknowledge the race of the Patriarch has settled. That is the natural or logical conclusion of what we have been disrus^'ng. If our Coronation Stove is "Jacob's Pillar,"' then the sovereigns crowned on it are of the royal house of Israel, and the people of the Empire over \\ horn they preside are the descendants of the Patriarch. God moves in a rny c ter:ous way, His wonders to perform ; He plant 1 ? His footsteps on the sea, And ndc3 upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable- mines Of never-failing skill. He treasures up His bright designs, And works his wondrou3 will.

Blind unbelief is sure to err. And scan His woik in vain; God is His own interpreter, And He Will make it plain.