THE GARLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3763, 27 April 1926, Page 27

THE GARLAND.

FOE THE QUIET HOUR. No. 661. By Duncan Weight, DsmßH, (Vm vn WmraM.) THE CONQUEST OF FEAR. Some one has said that the three commonest fears are the fear of disease, the fear of disappointment, and the fear of death. How are we to vanquish these black dragons? Face them in the faith that Christ is always with you. Do not fear disease; to fear it is a sure way to become its victim. Believe in Christ as your saving health. At worst disease can only kill the body and, after that, there is no more that it can do. Christ presently heals for ever. Better on the cross of pain with Christ than on the throne of pleasure without Him. Do not fear disappointment. Perhaps nothing is harder to bear. But I have seen some fine lilies grown from the rusty bulbs of frustration. This year’s shattered hopes may be next year’s scattered seeds;

O Cross that liftest up thy head, ldare not ask to fly from Thee; I lay in dust life’s glory dead, Aid from the ground there blossoms red Life that shall endless be!

Do not fear death. Christ has rendered death the most harmless thing in all the world. St. Paul says, “Death is yours.” We do not belong to death; death belongs to us. Christ has abolished death by life. The last words of a friend of ours who recently passed on were—- “ Wonderful! wonderful!” I believe death is God’s last and best surprise. There is a poem of Browning’s, the proof of which, significantly enough, reached him on liis death-bed. In this poem he bids his friends think of him, not as dead, but as marching right onward, as he had alw r ays done: One who never turned his back, but marched bieast forward; Never doubted clouds would break; Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph; Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake! * * * STREAMS IN THE DESERT. As journeying onward to the Land of ProE’en though the desert may at time look drear, And though unknown the way that lies before us, Led by our God, we need not faint nor fear. For He who brought us forth from Egypt’s bondage, At every step will ‘‘guide us with His eye”; No foe can harm us, compassed with His presence, No want arise that He will not supply. Each day He will provide our hungering spirits, With heavenly manna of His holy Word; And on our thirsty souls will pour the water Forth from the Rock of Ages—Christ the Lord. While heat and glare we must encounter, His over-shadowing cloud will us enshrine; In darkest hours, in night of loss and sorrow, • His heavenly light will on our pathway shine. Thus guided, kept, protected, and provided, We’li trust and praise Him ever more and more, Till safely borne across the parting river, We reach the heavenly land, our wanderings o’er. And if e’en now, upon our pilgrim-journey, We “taste and see” His all-sufficient grace, Wliat heart can picture what shall be our portion When in that blessed Home we see His face! —Alice Jane Home. # * * THE PROVOCATION OF LOVE. “Let us consider one another to provoke unto love.” —Heb. x. 24. Are we sufficiently sensible of the responsibility which we owe to each other in relation to these words of Apostolic admonition? Love is a sacred fire, and the measure of its glowing brightness and fervent heat is dependent on mutual friendship and kindly interest. We may put water or oil on the fire. Words, looks, and deeds are as so much fuel or rubbish. An unkind word, an ungracious look, a could touch of the hand, will lower the soul’s temperature. A kindly look, a gracious word, a friendly grasp will thrill through the veins, and circulate the warm blood of the recipient heart. One red coal will specdly go out, but put others with it, and they will burn into a clear and glowing fire. Live for self, and your heart will become frost-bitten. Live for others, and your soul shall be a focus of divine sunbeams, provoking, by the soft compulsions of love, the frozen hearts around.

* * • REMEMBER THE LORD. By H. Phillips. Whenever the trial is hard to endure, And doubt’s Bubtle reasoning your mind

would allure, Remember Jehovah is “faithful and sure”— “Remember the Lord.”

The way may be winding, or rugged, or dre*r, The cross may be heavy and cost many a tear, But press bravely onward—succumb to no foar—“Remember the Lord.”

Though plane be frustrated, and longinge denied,

Your dreams unfulfilled, and your cares multiplied, No trust in your Saviour will e’er be belied—- “ Remember the Lord.”

Or if o’er your pathway the roses are strewn, And your sky is as blue as the sky of fair June, Still, still, while the air with bird songs ie attune—- “ Remember the Lord.”

Remember Him always, in dark days or bright, When kind words would oheer you, or cold words would blight, Whatever the circumstance, turn to the Light—- “ Remember the Lord.”

’Twill work like the le.von in heart, all unclean, 'Twill comfort when friendships no longer are green, ....... 'Twill ease from tho pining for what might have been” — “Remember the Lord.”

Think much of His mercy, Hie pity, His His infinite love with which naught can comThink P much of the Cross and the crucified there—- “ Remember the Lord. * * * “GOD’S ALL ROUND."

The dunk of an early autumnal night was gathering over the city, when a gentleman, on his way home, felt a little hand clasp his, and heard a sweet little voice say, “Good evening.” Looking down, he recognised a face that he knew, that of a child of five or six years; and, surprised that she should be in the street at that hour, he said: “Why, mv dear, are you alone ? Ls not your father with you. “No,” she answered. “Are you not afraid?” “Afraid? Why? Gods all round,” was the quick reply. To me this is very beautiful. Our pathway turns into the shade; over us gather the clouds and the storms; the night comes; but whv need we fear? “God s all round.” On the wind of the tempest, on the wave of the sea, on the moan of the restless tide, His tender voice is borne in upon our hearts, and we cannot fear. He that keepeth us will not slumber. If we have tho child’s faith, and the child’s love, in our hours of darkness we shall but get closer to our God, and be conscious of His near personal presence as we may never be at any other time. But “God’s all round” in the sunshine, too. I am writing by a window from which I gaze upon a scene of panoramic glory which the artist’s happiest mood and most skilled pencil could but faintly reproduce. Before me the stately Hudson spreads a silver sheet, and over it go, like whitewinged birds, the .ovelv little pleasureboats that scarcely seem to touch its waters, so light and ethereal is the look they wear. The distant mountains are a blue line against tho horizon, and, nearer, green fields, and dimpling hills, and broad plateaus, mingle in bewildering beauty. I look from one point to another of this fair “buena vista,” and I see God. In every tree, in every grass blade, in every tiny flower, He speaks of love, and forethought, and kindest care. Shall we not listen, when, out of so much beauty and bloom, our Father evolves for us the lesson that we are of more value in His eyes than any other of His works \ So clothing the grass of the field, shall He not clothe His children not only with the garments of earthly need, but with the white raiment of a Saviour’s righteousness? How well should we work, if we could net into ur., as a part of our consciousness, this thought of God. He is not far off. He has not merely appointed our tasks, and then gone away and left us to plod through them as best we may. He is all around. He knows when our days are full of faithful work ; when duty and love clasp hands, and we are inspired to forget self and the things that are behind, and press forward for the prize. He knows when the hours drag, and the heart is heavy, and the hands drop the task. He knows, and He sympathises. How often, dear friends, if we get the spirit of this simple thought, will it be to us a help over hard places! In times of bereavement and desolation, when carea and anxieties burden, as .well as in hours eiate with hope and joy, if one shall say to us; “Are you alone? Are you afraid?” shall we not give the child’s answer: “Why?—God’s all round?” When discouraged that there come no sheaves to our reaping, no shimmer of golden fruit on our branches, nothing done that we can see for all our toil, shall we not comfort ourselves with : “It’s all right—God’s ail round.’’ And, as said an honoured servant of our Master, we shall say: “Work done; that lasts through the wreck of hope and the dissolving of this strange universe. ‘He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.’ ”