THE GARLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3590, 2 January 1923, Page 56

THE GARLAND.

FOR THE QUIET HOUR. No. 488. By Duncan Wright, DunedinThus with the year Seasons return; but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn. Or ’sight of veiTial bloom or summer’s rose. Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; But cloud instead, and ever-during dark Surrounds me; from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair Presented w.th a universal blank Of Nature’s works, to me expung’d and raz’d. And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. —John Milton. ’Tis sweet, a 3 year by year we lose Friends out of sight, in faith to mu:o How grows in Paradise our store. —John Keble. Ah, happy years! Once more who would not be a boy ! Byron. We spend our years as a tale that is told. —Psalm 90. Beyond this vale of tears There is a life above, Unmeasured by the flight of years; And all that life is love. —James Montgomery. Years following years steal something every day; At last they steal us from ourselves away. —Alexander Pope. A life spent worth.ly should be measured by a nobler line,—-by deeds, not years. —R. B, Sheridan. Who well lives, long lives; for this age of OIU'3 Should be numbered by years, duties, and hours. —Du Barta3. ’ Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years! I am so weary of toil and of tears, — Toil without recompense, tears all in vain! Take them, and give me my childhood again! Elizabeth A. Allen. We have lived and loved together Through many changing years; We have shared each other’s gladness And wept each other’s tears. —Charles J fferysR ng out the old, ring in the new. Ring happy bells, across the snow! Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in! —Tennyson. Thoughtful men and -women will gladly read a message to-day found in “Music for the Soul,” by Manchester’s great preacher, Rev. Alexander Maclaren, D.D. “One condition of a blessed life-—-cer-tainly a condition of a strenuous, fruitful, and noble one —is to make very clear to ourselves what is the ultimate aim to which we are shaping our conscious efforts. I believe that nine-tenths of all the failures in this world come from men not interrogating themselves and answering honestly and thoroughly this question: “What aru I living for?” Of course, all the nearer aims which our physical necessities, our tastes, and our appetites prescribe to us are clear enough to everybody; but back of them —suppose I have made my fortune, won my wife, filled my home with blessings, made my position as a student, an artist, a man of ‘commerce;’ behind all these lies—What then? What then? These ate not ends ; they are means. "**hat is the end that I am living for? back of all these and above them all? Oh, brother, if the average, unreflecting man, who lives from hand to mouth, recognising . only the aims for life which the necessities of living impose upon him, would but wake up to ask himself, for one reflective half-hour: ‘What is it all about? What does it all lead to What am I going to do after I have attained these nearer aims? There would not be so many wasted lives ; there would not be so many bitter old men. who look back upon a life in which failure has been at least as conspicuous as success. “Let us be sure that we know where we are going, and let our aim be the highest-, noblest, ultimate aim, befitting creatures with hearts, minds, consciences, and wills like ours. What that aim should be is not doubtful. The only wortliv aim is God. Canaan is usually regarded as an emblem of heaven, and that is coirect. But tne land of our inheritance is not wholly across the river, for ‘the Lord -s the portion of mine inheritance.’ God is heaven. To dwell with Him and. in Him to have all the current of our being settled towards Him, to remember Him in the struggle and strenuous effort of life, and to look to Him in hours of solitude and sadness, are the conditions of all blessedness, and of all strength and peace.” CHARITY. Love thinketh no evil. —I Cor. xiii, a. Then gently scan your brother Man, Still gentler sister Woman; Tho’ they may gang a kennin wrang, To step aside is human: One point must still be greatly dark, The moving why they do it; And just as lamely can ye mark How far perhaps, they me it. Who made the heart, ’tia He alone Decidedly can try us, He knows each chord, its various tone Each spring, its various bias: Then at the balance let’s be mute. We never can adjust it; What’s done we partly may compute, But know not what’s resisted. —Burns. A wise leader sets an infinite value on the welfare of his most lowly follower. The world through which I move is simply a reflection of my own inmost self. There is no devotion higher than t-liat of doing to the full the daily duties as they come. No one consecrates himself who doea not daily endeavour to have a better sell to consecrate.

One of the oddest things in life is the dread that some people feel of appearing as good as they really are. Many a man imagines that he thinks correctly about God, who does not see that doing right is part of thinking right. Some people are careful of their words: but words take care of themselves for those who are careful of their thoughts. There is no day which we may not lay upbroken on the altar, if we will do our regular work in a way that God approves. The world does not- so much need more people to teach the truth as it needs more people to practise the truth which they know. Gong after a shower, when the surface is dry, the earth at the roots is moist: so do kind words sink in. the heart and keep it fresh. The penalty of all success is that we are held thereafter to a higher standard of performance. It is also the greatest reward of success. > The first view of a duty is often the clearest view we get-. We see it before indolence and selfishness have befogged the vision, and before cowardice has had time to count the lion* in the way. —Selected. SUMMER'S EVE. Oh, the joy of well-earned leisure, When the days seem made for pleasure, And the peaceful hush of Nature all the weary being fills; When dear friends go forth together In tlie golden August weather, To the ocean or the moorland, or the everlasting hills' Some, whose work hath been with rigour, Gather strength and joy and vigour, On the breezy mountain summit, free as birds that sing and soar; Others in tbe mellow gloaming, Through the harvest-fields aie roaming, Or rejoicing in the ripple ot' the salt tide on the shore. There is merry childish laughter Where the wavelets, following after, Scatter in a thousand sparkles round the feet that dance with glee. Th:re is silence deep and tender Where, far off, the sundown splendour Shines an aftermath of glory on the meadows of the sea. Sweet to rest, our labour ended, By such joy and peace attended, When the summer leans to autumn and t'. e fight is in the west; All the fever of endeavour Seems to pass away for ever, And life's many cares and troubles like the great- sea sink to rest. —Mary Row!e6. HOW TO GET THERE. The Rev. John Macnab preached at a communion season on “Heaven.” It was a long sermon, but the people thought it as beautiful as a series of dissolving views. It had, however, one detect—the length of the descriptive part left no time for the “application. ’ Old George Brown met the preacher at a friend’s house, and astonished him by the resume he gave of the sermon. “It was really a grand sermon as far as it went,’’ he said, after he had finished his report. “I never enjoyed a description of heaven better. Ye told us a thing aboot heaven except hoo to get there ; and Maister Macnab, you’ll erotise me, my young friend, for savin’ that that shouldna hae been left out, for ye’ll admit yeTsel’ if that’s awantin’ ’ a’s awantin’. Ye’ll mind the King’s Son’s feast? The servants didna only "tell thata'thing was read v, but they compelled them to come in. ’ The young preacher was too intelligent not to see the aptness of the criticism, and when George had retired lie said to his friend: “I’ve been criticised by learned professors and doctors of divinity, by fellow-students and relatives, but that good old man has <fiven me more insight into what preaching should be than all the others put together. I hope as long as l live I shall never again, when delivering God’s message to mv fellow-men, forget to tell them ‘how to get there.’ ’’