THE GARLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3768, 1 June 1926, Page 68

THE GARLAND.

FOB THE QUIET HOUR. No. 660. By Duncan Wright, Dunedin. (For the Witness.) CHRIST AND THE SAMARITAN WOMAN. John iv: 1, 42. She left her pitcher on the well, And others went to call ; She had a tale of grace to tell, Which wae quite free to all. Say, ia not this the promised One, By prophets long foretold? lie told me all that I had done, And nothing did withhold. He spoke of Living Waters fres^ He ever kept in store; And all may drink abundantly, And never will thirst more. He says God seeks for worshippers, In Spirit and in Truth; The Spirit now and not the place, The one and only proof. They came and listened to His Word, Their hearts were opened wide. They drank in gladly all they heard, And begged Him to abide. It was His meat and drink to speak, What God in grace had done; The Son of Man had come to seek Each lost and sinful one. He once had said: -Come unto Me, Ye weary and oppressed; Come, take My yoke, and learn of Me, And I will give you rest." The widened fields of ripened grain, Himseif had come to reap; What Jewry’s sons in scorn disdain, Samaria’s lost ones keep. r-E. C. Thompson. * # * * OUR HEAVENLY FATHER. A MEDITATION. Does the true meaning of tlie three word 3 —“ Our Heavenly Father”— awaken in our hearts the sublime feelings it should? We see, hear, and say them, most of us, perhaps not infrequently, but rarely grasp the depth of their significance, because we do not ponder over what they really mean. “Father,” a word which implies the very cause of our existence, the fact that we are His offspring. As such, we have His loving care, protection, arid maintenance, with the consequent knowledge that to Him we can turn in our troubles and difficulties, feeling sure that as His children, in Christ, Ha will do wtyt is best in our interests. Since n is He who brought us into this world, in each of us there is something which forms a direct tie with Himself, and a link with all His other children. That something of Himself, being divine in its origin and essence, is the spiritual part of our being, all else except what we call “life” coming from the earth, our mother; transient as she is because formed of the same ultimate substance. So what word can nrnre truly signify our inseparable link with Him than “Father?” The word “God” can never imply so dose a relationship; and moreover, let us always remember that it is to His Son, Jesus Christ, we owe the authority and permission so to address Him. Dread and fear may be words more applicable to a “God,” but hardly the love, honour, and obedience of a child to its Father. “Heavenly,” through vulgar use, as an expression of supreme excellence, has lost its true significance, but when applied to “Father,” not only does it imply location as to His dwelling-place, but every other attribute that should be applied to the Supreme Being. But, since He is omnipresent, the sense of “locality,” as we commonly understand the word, must be less correct than that of “being.” So the words “Our Heavenly Father,” “Our Father which art in Heaven,” may more truly be taken as signifying the state of supreme blessedness and' glory in which He exists, and whereunto our puny minds may strive to reach when we appeal for help, comfort, guidance, and support in our daily needs. The knowledge of His Fatherhood to us should therefore be not only the certainty of our divine origin and everlasting continuity with Him, but also of His loving care for us: “Our Heavenly Father.” But it is the word “Our” in the formula which is of such great importance to us, for it is not merely as a Father that we should regard Him, hut as our very own, and so for each one of us; and that consequently we ean approach Him as a child should its earthly father, to whom it goes in its difficulties and troubles. Once we can thoroughly grasp the realsignificance of those three words ami their direct hearing upon us, we shall feel heartened and strengthened in our fight with the troubles of life, by the knowledge that we have been expressly bid to use them, and can consequently look upon Him a* “Our Heavenly Father,” and not merely and only as the Almiglitv God. —J. K. D. M. • « • THK CHRIST 1 WALK WITH. A d«ad Christ could not guide me, Or help ms iu tho fray, Nor could He walk beside me Along life's dusty way.

He could not share my sorrow Nor heal or ease my pain, From Him I could not borrow Strength for life's fret and strain. And when dread foes assail me, And I am sorely tried, A dead Christ could but fail me. In Him I could not hide. But ah! the Christ I walk with, The Christ whose Blood was shed, The Christ I live and talk with, Has risen from the dead. And He is near to aid me, However dark the hour; The living Christ who made me, My wisdom is and power. He keeps my feet from falling, He knows the way I take. He hears when I am calling, And answers for His sake. O living Christ., omniscient. Omnipotent, divine, Thy grace is all sufficient To meet each need of mine! —Needham Phillips. * * * THINGS TO THINK ABOUT. Christ, in the burnt offering, was exclusively for the eye and heart of God. This point should be distinctly apprehended. God alone coulo fully appreciate the Cross as the expression of Christ’s perfect devotedness. The Cross, as foreshadowed by the burnt offering, had depths so profound that neither mortal nor angel could fathom them. There was a voice in it which was intended exclusively for tlie Father. There were communications between the Cross of Calvary and the Throne of God, which lay far beyond the highest range of created intelligence. This truth invests the Cross with peculiar charm for the spiritual mind. It imparts to the sufferings of our blessed Lord an interest of the most intense character. The guilty sinner finds in the Cross a divine answer to the deepest and most earnest cravings of heart and conscience. The true believer finds in the Cross that which captivates every affection of his heart, and transfixes his whole moral being. The angels find in the Cross a theme for ceaseless admiration. All this is true; but there is that in the Cross which transcends the loftiest conception of saints or angels; namely, the deep-toned devotion of tlie heart of the Son presented to, and appreciated by, the heart of the Father. This is the elevated aspect of the Cross so strikingly shadowed forth in the burnt offering. He offered Himself without spot —an odour of incomparable fragrance unto God.—C. H. Mackintosh.

* * * THE FATHER’S HEART. “Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you.”— Jas. iv: 8. “I will arise and go to my father. . . . When lie was yet a great way off, hiß father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on Ida neck, and kissed him.”—Luke xv; 18, 20. I will arise, I will arise And to my father go, For I have sinn’d in heaven's eyes, And I will tell him so. I will confess, I will confess The evil of my way; Far from the path of righteousness My feet have gone astray. I am undone! I am undone! Consummate my disgrace; Unworthy to be called thy son, Or to behold thy face. Lo! from afar, lo! from afar His father saw, and ran— So tender the compassions arc E’en in the heart of man. MV son is found! my son is found! He liveth who was dead!— His arms he flung his reck around A 3 tears of joy he shed. Draw niqrh to God, draw nigh to God— The Father’s heart is true; i-finite commission shod, He. will draw nigh to you. -G. F. J # * # DOES GOD FORGET? What a gracious word is that, spoken to persecuted Hebrews—“ God is not unrighteous to forget. . . .” (Heb. 6, 10). There is no unrighteousness with God, and it is a striking thought that for Him to* forget the work and laliour of His people in times gone bv would be unrighteous on His part. So He knows our frame, and remembers that we are dust, and, remembering, deals tenderly with us. Nor does He forget us: “O Isreal, thou shalt not be forgotten of Me” (Isa. 44, 21). The mother may forget her child, yet will not our God forget us. So we might go on, but it is surely not, necessary—every trusting child of God is assured of tlie Father's unsleeping watchfulness. But. says one, He forgets our sins. Does He? He easts them behind His back, into tlie depth of the sea. He removes our transgressions from us even as far as tlie cast is from the west. But does He forget them? We think not. The passage so often quoted docs not amount to this. We read: “Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more” (Heb. 10. 17). We should recognise that “not to remember” is not just the same thing with God as “to forget.” To forget is a human weakness, which we must not ascribe to the Most High. We forget because we cannot remember; most unrighteously we forget favours and kindnesses. On tlie other hand, the more we try to forget some things, the more they assert themselves to our minds. Not so God; He cannot forget. But He declares that Hs will “not remember”

the sins of His people. It is a grander and more noble thing, by an act of almighty will, not to remember than it wouid be merely to forget. Our assurance of immunity from the judicial wrath of God rests, not upon His forgetting our sins, as we ourselves might forget a slight or an injury, but rather upon His will and purpose not to remember sins that are atoned for, confessed, and pardoned; for— I will remember now no more, God’s faithful Word hath said, The follies and the sins of him For whom My Son has bled. -A. M.