EVERY SATURDAY RELIGIOUS LIFE

Southland Times, Issue 23308, 18 September 1937, Page 21

EVERY SATURDAY RELIGIOUS LIFE

(By POFOKOTEA)

MY RELIGION BY MADAME CHIANG KAI-SHEK (From The China Digest, Shanghai) By nature I am not a religious person. At least, not in the common acceptance of that term. lam not by nature mystic. lam practical mi • Mundane things have meant much to me, perhaps too much Mundane, not material things. I care more for a beautiful celadon vase than tor y jewels. I am more disturbed as I traverse the crowded, dirty streets o interior city than lam by the hazards of flying with poor visibility whic y husband and I experienced recently. Personal danger means nothing to . But I am concerned that my schools for the children of the revolution y heroes shall raise for them, and perhaps for the communities to which y return, the standard of living and the quality of life. During the last sev years I have suffered much. I have gone through deep waters because o the chaotic conditions in China, the lopping off of our richest province , the death of my saintly mother, flood, famine, and the intrigues of those who should have been helping to unify the country. All these things have made me see my own inadequacy. More than that, all human insufficiency .... Life is really very simple, yet how confused we make it. In old art, there is just one outstanding object, perhaps a flower, on a scroll, .everything else in the picture is subordinated to that one beautiful tiling. An 1 - i egrated life is like that. What is the one flower? As I feel it now, it is e will of God. But to know His will and to do it, calls tor absolute sincerity, absolute honesty with oneself, and it means using ones ability, there is n weapon with which to fight sincerity and honesty. Political lue is, tull o falsity and diplomacy and expediency. _ My firm conviction is that one s g est weapon is not more deceptive falsity, more subtle diplomacy, greater expediency, but the simple unassailable weapon of sincerity and truth. There are two things in the Bible that impress me more than others. One is, “Thy will be done,” and the other, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind.” We have to use our minds as well as our hearts. Hell is paved with good intentions. And I know of nothing more aggravating than a well-meaning person who has no judgment. Prayer is our source of guidanc and balance. God is able to enlighten the understanding. I am often bewildered, because my mind is only finite. I question and doubt my own judgments. Then I seek guidance, and when I am sure, go ahead, leaving the results with lm Our finite minds beside His infinite mind seem to me like this: I go walking and the hills loom above me, range upon range, one against the other. I cannot tell where one begins and another leaves off. But trom tne air (I seldom have time to travel any other way now) everything has a distinct colour and form. I can see things so much more clearly. Perhaps that is like my mind and God’s and when I talk with Him, He lifts me up to where I can see clearly .... , , . ... In conclusion, my religion is a very simple thing. It means to tay with all my heart and soul and strength and mind to do the will of God. I feel that God has given me a work to do for China. China s problems in some ways are greater today than ever before. But despondency and despair are not mine today. I look to Him who is able to do all things, even more than we ask or think. At this time of writing, I am with my husband in the heart of the bandit area. Constantly exposed to danger, I am unafraid. I know that nothing can happen either to the General or to me till our work is done. After that, what does it matter? THE BIBLICAL WINDOW CANTICLE OF THE WEEDS

INTIMATION OF IMMORTALITY 1 Cor. 15:55 “O death where is thy sting?” A veteran nurse (quoted in The American Magazine): It has always seemed to me a major tragedy that so many people go through life haunted by the fear of death —only to find when it comes that it’s as natural as life itself. For very few are afraid to die when they get to the very end. In all my experience only one seemed to feel any terror—a woman who had done her sister a wrong which it was too late to right. Something strange and beautiful happens to men and women when they come to the end of the road. All fear, all horror disappears. I have often watched a look of happy wonder dawn in their eyes when they realized this was true. It is all part of the goodness of nature and, I believe, of the illimitable goodness of God. IN THE PROVINCE OF PRAYER Luke II:I “Lord, teach us to pray.” In the foothills of the Himalayas, among the Khonds of North India, one hears the prayer: “Oh Lord, we know not what is good for us. Thou knowest what it is. For it we pray.” —H. E. Fosdick One day Robert Louis Stevenson read us a prayer he had just written. In it were words none of us ever forgot. “When the day returns, call us up with morning faces and with morning hearts, eager to labour, happy if happiness be our portion, and if the day be marked for sorrow, strong to endure.” We waked on the morning with happy morning faces; only Louis’ wife was troubled with a premonition that the, day was marked for sorrow. That day' at the height of his fame, in the best health he had ever enjoyed, Louis went out of this life suddenly, quietly, painlessly. —lsobel Field (R.L.’s stepdaughter)

Thou, who delighted in unnoticeable deeds, Who, of Thy love, didst scatter silent seeds Of glory on our little plots of needs, The radiant dandelion, glowing in the meads; Daisies, which happy maidens string like beads; Marsh-marigolds among the rivers reeds; The buttercup which heavenward intercedes: We thank Thee, Lord, for that Thy kindness feeds With tenderness, beyond our earthly creeds, Those comrades of our childhood—men call weeds. —J. M. Barrie. SPICE Little Mary had not been very good and as a punishment she was made to eat her dinner at a small table in the corner of the dining-room. She was ignored by the rest of the family until they heard her saying grace: “I thank thee, Lord, for preparing for me a table in the presence of mine enemies.” When James Garfield was president of Hiram College in Ohio he was approached by the father of a prospective pupil: “Can’t you simplify the course?” he asked. My boy will never take all that in. He wants to get through by a shorter route.” “Certainly,” answered Garfield, “I can arrange for that. It all depends of course, on what, you want to make of him. When God wants to make an oak, He takes a hundred years; but when He wants to make a squash, He requires only two months.” Prayer of a Scottish preacher: “Oh, God, guide us aright for we are very determined.”