THE GARLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3148, 15 July 1914, Page 73

THE GARLAND.

By Duncan Wright, Dunedin.

FOE THE QUIET HOUE. No. 46.

“A LITTLE BIT OF LOVE.” Do you know the world is dying For a little bit of love? Everywhere we hear their sighing „ For a little bit of love— For the love that rights a wrong, Pills a heart with eong; They have waited, oh, so long. For a little bit of love. From th© poor of every city, For a little bit of love, Hands are reaching out of pity For a little bit of love; Some have burdens hard to bear, Some have sorrows w© should share; Shall they falter and despair For a little bit gf love? Down before their idols falling For a little bit of love, Many souls in vain are calling For a little bit of love; If they die in sin and shame, Someone surely is to blame For not going in His name With a little bit of love. While the souls of men are dying For a little bit of love; While the children, too, are crying For a--little bit of love; ' Stand no longer idly by, You can help them if you try; Go, then, saying, “Here am I With a little bit of love.' A-.TOUCHING APPEAL. “ To my boy, who left home on Monday night, September 16. My darling boy,—lf you see this,' which I pray our Heavenly Father you may, please let your distressed mother know where you are.— Mother.” Dr Wilbur Chapman tells us that this notice appeared in one of the daily newspapers, and then he adds these words “That was all. ,No name. Nothing to let you know. Only the cry of a mother’'— a cry of love for a lost boy. No blame. No„ complaint. There is no love like a mother’s love.’Have we not heard this same cry? Have not we seen these sad tears? Yes, too often.

There is in all this cold and hollow world no fount Of deep, strong, deathless love save that within a mother’s heart. Concerning love Mrs Hemans also sweetly sings: You ne’er smoothed His couch, ne’er sung him to his rosy rest, Caught his last whisper, when his voice from yours Had learnt soft utterance; pressed your lips to his When fever parched it; hushed his'wayward cries With-patient, vigilant, never-wearied love! No! these are woman’s tasks; in these her youth, And bloom of cheek, and buoyancy of heart Steal from her unmark’d.

r Personally I often wish, and wish ' sincerely, that life were not so hot and keen in all branches of business. The , whole world seems feverish and on wheels. For the good old style of quiet, wholesome social and home life we have nowadays neither time, taste, nor patience When carried forward on the rushing, merciless tide we too often forget what is best and sweetest in life. Nemesis overtakes us, and the doctor calls it nervous “ breakdown ” ; or probably he may use another word, “ neurasthenia ” ; and the poor, weak heart instantly goes thump, thump against the ribs. Rest and absolute quietness are recommended. But even this modest prescription would be all the more palatable if mixed with “a little bit of love.’’ Yes, — Love is the root of creation—God’s essence': •worlds without number Lie in His bosom like children; He made them for His purpose only— Only to love and to be loved again. He - breathed forth His spirit - Into the slumbering dust, and, upright standing, it laid its Hand on its heart, and felt it was warm with a flame out of heaven; Quench, O quench not that flame! It is the breath of your being. NO.W LET GOD’S WORK SPEAK: “Dear friends,” writes the inspired penman, ” let love one another; for love has its origin in God, and everyone who loves has become a child of God, and is beginning to he known of God. He who is destitute of love has never had any knowledge of God, because God is dove.” You cannot fail - to note that God’s crucible tests all men, without distinction of age, race, colour, or isociql status. The spurious coin may, and often does, indeed, pass amongst men who are but erring and mortal and have such a limited vision; but the Almighty never makes mistakes. Love is the true and final test, and hence the X-rays question of our Lord and Saviour to one who had been a grievous backslider, “ Lovest thou Me?” And Paul is emphatic when he declares, “ Love is the fulfilling of the law.’’ How the poets revel in song concerning love! But only concerning what is pure, sweet, and beautiful would we dare to write. The world is full of beauty. As brighter worlds above; - And if we did our duty It might be full of love When I heard a thousand worshippers sing heartily and reverently the grand old German hymn of Scheffler, and translated by John Wesley, “ Thee will I love, my strength, my .tower,” how should I feel? Just in this way : If my own heart be all aglow with true love to God and love to all men, I will greatly rejoice. But if I am only a poor, cold, shrivelled critic, destitute of grace and love to either God or man, I am likely to curl the supercilious lip and proudly stand aloof —truly

a piteous picture. But the words and music of the hymn I mention have a majestic ring about them. Happy the man, happy the woman, who with modesty and trembling lips and reverent hope can sing the lofty and ennobling words: Thee will I love, my strength, my tower; Thee will I love,. my joy, my crown; Thee will I love with all my -i power, In all Thy works, and Thee alone; Thee will I love, till the pure fire . Fill my whole soul with chaste desire. Thee will I love, my joy, my crown; - Thee will I love, my Lord, my God; Thee will I love, beneath Thy frown, Or smile, Thy sceptre, ox Thy rod. What though my flesh and heart decay. Thee shall I love in endless day I I venture the opinion that the ripest Christian is thankful that the Saviour did not long ago, nor to-day, ask, “ How MUCH do you love me?” Because if He were to do so, most Christian men and women would blush scarlet for very shame. The man who declares vehemently that he wmuld die for his Church may be, after all, a poor sample of the family of heaven; whereas the man who offers to die because of his love and loyalty to Jesus Christ is worthy of the martyr’s crown. In this connection note what is said by JOHN EUSKIN: “ He who loves not God, nor his brother, cannot love the grass beneath his feet, nor the creatures which live not for his uses, filling those spaces in the universe which he heeds not; while, on the other hand, none can love God, nor his human brother, without looking upon them, everyone, as in that respect his brethren also, and perhaps worthier than he, if, in the under concords they have to fill, their part is touched more truly.” ' JOHN STUAET BLACKIE, truly a grand, rugged old Scot, when addressing young men on one occasion,_said: “ The octogenarian ooet-phifosopher Goethe, when sinking into the darkness of death, called out with his last breath: ‘ More light!’” And what every young man should cull out daily if he wishes to save himself from the narrowing crush of professional and other limitations is “More love!' Men afe often clever enough, but they don’t know what to do with their cleverness ; they are good swordsmen, but they have' no cause to fight for, or prefer fighting in a bad cause. What these men want is Love. The precept of the great Apostle: “Weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice,” if it were honestly carried out, would make every man’s life as rich in universal sympathy as Shakespeare’‘s imagination was in universal imagery; Love took up the harp of Life, And smote on all its chords with might— Smote the chords of Self, that, trembling. Passed in music, out of eight. “ When we know that love is behind the world in which we live, we can wait.” I say to thee, do thou repeat To the first man thou mayest meet, In lane, highway, or open street, That he, and we, and all men move Under a canopy of "love As broad as the blue sky above. And ere thou leave him, say thou this: Yet one word more —they only miss The winning of the final bliss Who wall not count it true that love, Blessing, not cursing, rules above, And that in it we live and move. And one thing further make him know— That to believe these things are so, ■ This firm faith never to forgo. Despite of all that seems at strife With blessing, all with curses rife, That this is blessing, this is life. When his Majesty our late King found, only a day or two before he died, a poor old body standing at the door of one of the cottages at Sandringham, He graciously said, “ Keep yonrself warm, granny.” Was not that “ a little bit of love”? A QUEENLY MESSAGE. When the news reached her concerning the appalling colliery accident at Whitehaven, whereby 133 poor fellows perished, the Queen-Mother sent her cheque and this sympathetic message : “In my crushing grief I am not insensible to that ot others. My heart bleeds for the bereaved widows and members of the families of the poor men who have lost their lives.’’ Was not this another little hit of love? HALL CAINE, with clear emphasis, goes so far as to say that “ love is the only lovely thing in life. It is beauty, it is poetry. Call it passion if you will—what would the world be without it? A place without children, without joy, without merriment, without laughter. No, no! Heaven has given us love, and we are. wrong when we try to put it away. The greatest happiness of life is—love. Heaven would have to work a miracle to enable us to live without it. But Heaven does not work such a miracle, because the greatest miracle of Heaven is love itself.” Love is old— Old as eternity, but not outworn; With each new being born, or to be bora.