THE GARLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3149, 22 July 1914, Page 73

THE GARLAND.

By Duncan Wright, Dunedin*

FOR THE QUIET HOUR. No. 47.

“CROWN HIM! CROWN HIM!” Thou art my King; to The© my spirit owes right allegiance, but, alas! instead Of due fulfilment, I havw basely fled Before the face of thos© who are Iny loss. Dr Rabbi Duncan, who occupied the position of Professor of Hebrew in the New College of Edinburgh, tells us that the “Te Deum” is not only a grand piece of writing, but is by far the finest fragment of post-Aposiolic devotion. It is most inspiring to hear a large company of worshippers sing the words: We praise Thee, O God, we Acknowledge Thee to be the Lord. All the earth, doth worship Thee: the Father everlasting. • Thou art The King of Glory; O Christ, Thou art the everlasting Son Of. the Father. The Te Deum is very old ; is supposed to to have been the composition of &t. Ambrose in the fourth century, and was sung at St. Augustine’s ordination. . • “No one,’’ says Dr Duncan, “can tell the influence of that hymn during the 14 centuries it has been in use.” The clear, ringing, emphatic sentences concerning the Deity of our Lord are, in our own hazy times, singularly full of good cheer and hope to all humble believers. On some points that are vital, negative, halting sentences, are worse than no teaching, and never carry conviction. On other points one may not dogmatise, but where foundation truths are concerned at seems to the present writer that it is absolutely essential that the teacher, whether he wear a white tie, or no tie, must bo positive, emphatic, dogmatic. That is the candid opinion of this writer, and must, of course, be taken at its value. On a certain memorable occasion the Rev. W. Dawson was preaching in South Lambeth on the offices of Christ. He presented Him as Teacher and Priest, and then as the King of Saints. He marshalled patriarchs and kings, prophets and apostles, martvrs and confessors of every and clime", to place the insignia of royalty upon the head of the King of the Universe. The audience was wrought up to the highest pitch of excitement; and, as if waiting to hear the anthem peal out for the vast assemblage, the preacher commenced singing : All hail the power of Jesus’ name; Let angels prostrate fall; Bring forth the royal diadem And crown Him XiOi*d of all Crown Him, ye morning stars of light, Who fix’d this floating ball; Now hail the strength of Israel s might And crown Him Lord of all. The audience started to their feet, and sang the hymn as perhaps It was never sung before. IS THIS TRUE OF 1914? I quote again from Rabbi Duncan; “The person of Christ is not sufficiently studied or contemplated by the majority , of modern theologians. Very many Protestants are Nestorians without knowing it. It is not so with the Roman Catholics. You will never find a priest wandering from the Catholic faith on the person of Christ or in reference to the Trinity.” I do not claim to have personal knowledge of the foregoing statements, but once more I ask of those who do know ; Is the foregoing true to date ? If so, then 1 would say, respectfully, all honour to the Church of Rome for her unfaltering loyalty to Jesus Christ, our only Saviour, Lord, and King! And is it a fact that the person of Christ is not sufficiently studied or contemplated by the majority of modern theologians”? If-so, a plain man, who is not a theologian, would say: “God pity the theologians, and God help the common people who eagerly long for the Bread of Life!” If this terrible indictment by a learned, wise teacher is true, may it not in part account for the materialism, the apathy, and the worldliness, among Christians, as well as the veiled and outstanding hostility to the things of God, in these days of so-called progressive thought and culture? Surely no one in his sober senses would brazenly charge with ignorance and folly the millions of Christendom who last Sunday in- ten thousand Christian temples solemnly and reverently repeated the words of the Apostles’ Creed: ‘ 1 believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ His only Son. our Lord,” and next Sunday will sing : “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to” the Holy Ghost,'' with being rank hypocrites and ignorant babblers! „It cannot he. ANOTHER POWERFUL WITNESS. Not so long ago the British Weekly made this definite pronouncement: “We need in the padpit the element of exaltation and passion, those elements in a sermon which appeal primarily to the emotions and the imagination. There are a few who will profit by calm and carefully reasoned discourses, but for the highest successes there must be the power of vivid feeling, the faculty for conveying to the listeners the pathos, the peril, the significance of life, and-the glory of the grace of God in Christ.” HIGHER STILL. “We of this modern time need, if possible, more than ever to hear the voice of Jesus; and our Jesus is the Jesus Who came by miracle, and Who rose again from the dead, Who ascended into heaven. Who sits at the right hand of God the Father, who comes again to end this order, and to bring in the fair eternal order to which struggling souls aspire. The God

we need is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.’’ When addressing his students Mr C. H. Spurgeon on one occasion spoke thus; “Brethren, I do not believe that our Lord Jesus Christ ever received so much attention from men as when lie is set forth as the suffering Saviour, evidently crucified among them.” Do you assent? There are precious pearls of promise. That never can be priced in gold. There’s a fulness in my Saviour That has never yet been told. “If,” says a young missionary, who had buried his young wife among savages — “if it had not been for Jesus and the presence He vouchsafed to me there, I should have gone mad and died beside that lonely grave.” If it had not been for Jesus, what would the past have been? If it were not for Jesus, what would be the present and the future of the race? Who can tell? But with thankful hearts we have Jesus, and as our fathers sang in the days of long ago we may still sing: Our Jesus proclaims His name all victorious; Ho rules over all, and His kingdom is glorious; To Jesus our King the great congregation With triumph will sing in ascribing salvation. On Zion we shall stand when, escaped to the shore, With palms in our hands we will praise Him the more; We’ll range the sweet plains on the banks of the river, And sing of salvation for ever and ever. Do you remember the story of John Newton’s conversion? In early manhood he was a sailor, and a profligate at that, on board an African slaver. “I was,” he writes, “a wild beast on the coast of Africa, but the Lord caught me, and tamed me.” One night he had a dream in which he was handling a rope on deck, and a ring which he greatly prized slipjied off his finger and dropped into the sea. “You have lost it,” said the stranger, “and you will lose it again. Let me keep it for you.” He understood the parable when he awoke, and gave his precious soul into the keeping of Jesus, and left it there. Crown Him the Lord of years, The Potentate of time, Creator of the rolling spheres. In effably sublime; All hail Redeemer, hail! ' For Thou hast died for me; Thy praise shall never, never fail Throughout eternity. It does one good to read the testimony of Napoleon, “The Man of Fate,” when on lonely St. Helena he wrote what 1 now quote: in Christ astonishes me. . . . His birth, and the history of His life; the profundity of His doctrine, which grapples the mightiest diffictdties; His empire; His march across the ages and the realms; everything is for me a prodigy, a mystery' insoluble, which plunges me into a reverie from which I cannot escape a mystery which is there before ™y e Y es > a mystery which I can neither deny nor explain. Here I see nothing human. The nearer I approach, the more carefully I examined. Everything is above me. Everything remains grand—of a grandeur which overpowers. JTis religion is a revelation from an intelligence which certainly is not that of man.’’ Bring forth the royal diadem And crown Hire Lord of all.