THE GARLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3757, 16 March 1926, Page 72

THE GARLAND.

FOR THE QUIET HOUR. No. 655. By Duhcah Weight, Dunedin. (Foe thi Witness.; THE OLD STORY. Come and hear the grand old story, Story of the ages past; All earth's annals far surpassing, Story that shall ever last. Noblest, truest, Oldest, newest, Fairest, rarest, Saddest, gladdest, That this earth has ever known. Christ, the Father's Son eternal, Once was born, a Son of man; He, who never knew beginning, Here on eaith a liie ocjjau. Here in David’s lowly city, Tenant of the manger bed, Child of everlasting ages, Mary’s infant, lays His head. There He lies, in mighty weakness, David’s Lord and David’s Sou; Creature and Creator meeting. Heaven and earth conjoined in one. Here at Nazareth He dwelleth, ’Mid the scorn of sinful men; Sorrowful, forlorn, and hated, And yet hating none again. Here in Galilee He wanders, Through its teeming cities moves, Climbs its mountains, walks it 3 waters, Blesses, comforts, saves and loves. Words of truth and deeds of kindness, Miracles of grace and mi^ht, Scatter fragrance all around Him, Shine with heaven's most gionous light. In Gethsemane behold Him, In the agony of prayer; Kneeling, pleading, groaning, bleeding, Soul and body prostrate there. All alone He wrestles yonder, Close beside Him stands the cup, Bitterest cup that man e’er tasted; Yet for us He drinks it up. —Horatius Bonar, D.D. • * * • ■ REALLY. “Prove the sincerity of your love."—2 Cor. If I really, really Trust Him, Shall I ever fret? If I really do Expect Him, Can I e’er forget? If by faith I really See Him, Shall I doubt His aid ? If I really, really Love Him, Can I be afraid? —F. M. N. • • * • • In the Roman hall behold Him Stand at Pilate’s judgment Mocked and beaten, crowned and wounded; Jew and Gentile join in hate. On to Golgotha He hastens; Yonder stands His cross of woe; From His hands, and feet, and forehead, See the precious life-blood flow. Sinless, He our sin is bearing, All our sorrows on Him lie. And His stripes our wounds ore healing, God, for man, consents to die. It is finished 1 See His body Laid alone in Joseph’s tomb; ’Tis for us He lieth yonder. Prince of Light enwrapp’d in gloom. But in vain the grave hag bound Him, Death has barr’d its gate in Vain; See, for us the Saviour rises, Sec, for us He bursts the chain. Hear we then the grand old story, True as God’s all-faithful Word, Best of tidings to the guilty, Of a dead and risen Lord. 'Tis eternal life to know it, Light and love are shining there, While we look, and gaze, and listen, All its joy and peace we share. Hear we then the grand old story, And in listening learn the love, Flowing through it to the guilty, From our pardoning God above. Glory be to God the Father, Glory be to God the Son, Glory be to God the Spirit, Great Jehovah, Three in One. • • • • • the CHRIST OF THE ANDES. On page 269 of a famous book entitled “Through South America’s Southland," with an account of the Roosevelt Scientific Expedition to South America, by Rev. J. A. Zahm, C.S.C. will be seen a photograph of what was called “Cristo Redentor." Readers who havo stayed a day or two | in Rio de Janeiro, the capital of Brazil, and seen the famous Botanical Gardens I can never forget it. While the two

powers, Chile and Argentine, were marshalling their armies and preparing their fleets for action, the Argentine Bishop cf San Juan conceived tlie idea of erecting a statue of Christ the Redeemer on one of the lofty peaks of the Andes, and the work was successfully carried through by a voung sculptor, Mateo Alonso. The statue, the first of its size to be cast in America, is of bronze. It is nearly 30 feet high, and rests on a column of granite 22 feet in height. It holds a cross in the left hand, and the right is raised in benediction. The complete monument has a height of nearly 60 feet, and was completed in 1903. Medals were struck which bore on one side the Christ of the Andes, and on the reverse the symbols of union of the two sister republics. In the Argentine arsenal two bronze tablets were cast, one of which, in front of the statue, bears this truly Christian inscription: ‘‘Sooner shall these mountains crumble into dust than shall Argentines and Chileans break the peace which they have sworn before the feet cf Christ the Redeemer.”

On the tablet on the opposite side of the monument is an equally touching sentiment, viz.: “He is our peace Who has made us one." It is worthy of note that these tablets were the gifts of the Workingmen’s and Workingwomen’s Union of Buenos Aires. When I survey tha wondrous Cross On which the Prince of Glory died, My richest gain I count but loss, And pour contempt on all my pride. REV. PROFESSOR W. M. CLOW has set forth in a scholarly and most reverent fashion in his book entitled “The Day of the Cross’’ a course cf sermons (twenty-six in all) on the men and women and some of the notable things of the day of the Crucifixion of Jesus in most thrilling messages and almost entrancing language. 1 give one sample: “There are among us tc-dav, after, all the centuries of the light and teaching of Jesus and His Cross, who see no more in Him than was seen by the honest centurion. Their mouths are full of the praise of the righteousness, the moral loveliness, the spiritual greatness of Jesus. Already every tongue is ready -to confess Jesus as the supreme and only Master of the moral life of man. . . “When the great deeds of human history —and very great some of them are—are brought into the light of the Cress, they pale as the stars pale before the sun. Fathers have gone to the scaffold for sons; mothers have perished in the snow to keep their babes warm in their sheltering bosoms; friend has given up life for friend in a rare and splendid devotion ; patriots have died for their country; but when men pick out the bravest, and costliest, most loving and beautiful of all deeds of dying, and place it beside the Cross, it shrinks into insignificance. And all men feel that Jesus is not like other men. They confess the mystery of His being. The Divine, they say, was in Him, in a measure seen in no other man. ‘Certainly this was a righteous man,’ ‘Truly this was the Son of God,’ are words that might have been coined to express their thoughts. The echo of them in varying degrees of earnest coir-iction, and in never-failing felicity of language is ever cn their lips." Toplady’s “Rock of. Ages" is a more convincing and convicting apology than Butler’s noble and unanswerable ‘Analogy.” One vivid sight of the print of the nails alone can evoke the rapturous and adoring confession, “My Lord and my God."