SUNDAY COLUMN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 39, 30 September 1911, Page 2

SUNDAY COLUMN.

SERMON BY REV. J. MORLATS JONES. “And whosoever shall give Lo drink unto one of these little ones n cup of cold water only in the name ol a disciple. . . ho shall in no wise lose Jus reward.”—Matt. 10:12. Life’s most perfect gifts and Inost perfect mercies are little things. “A cup of cold water.” We have somehow become singularly blind and demented. We sot before ourselves as life’s most perfect prizes, the essence of its bliss, the things which .the experience of every ago has proved have no relation to genuine bliss at all. We strive and deny ourselves, become untrue to our divinest longings, strangle our noblest instincts in order to possess them, and they leave us hungry and haggard as ever. Marvellous how the dream of wealth fascinates man. Gold has only to show itself, and we will pursue it over the souls of our children, and sponge every reminisencc of God out of our souls for its sake. And yet, what can it dop it cannot set one line of nobleness in a man’s face. It is common things —simple tilings—that quench thirst, not spiced wine, but a “cup of cold water.” Health, work, genuine friendship, the caresses of little children, the love that set its hand in yours one beautiful morning five and twenty years ago, which has become deep.-., richer, sweeter as your head lias grown grey. God’s sweet. simple gifts!. Tiis most real ‘help"that u<> ••an render one another lies in thing/ that .cost' very little'. You ma\ not' be able to do much, hut you can give to somebody who ueeds.it “a cup of cold water.” We can do much for one another, and fair do nothing. You cannot do my work, I received it as a sealed secret from the hand of God and no one can open it but myself. You can excuse me no duty, or sate me from one yard of the road; but when I am weary, fagged, disheartened, you can cheer me. I have seen a picture of the soldiers passing through a village on their way to the front. It has been a long march, and everyone is weary and footsore. There lias been hard lighting hut'there is much more at the front. The villagers cannot save them from the battle, hut they can cheer them as they go, and everything the little town holds in the shape of food and help is thrust upon them. And so here. We must go to the front, no one can save us from that. Discipline, sorrows, struggles conic in the common lot of all. But we have hooks, friends, comforts, which bring summer into the soul and banish cares and fears.

Our real salvation, the things which put heart into ius, are tho simplicities, the “cup of cold water.” Great things the majority, of us cannot; do. Great writers.seldom come. Tenpyson is dead, and Englapd is beginning to wonder whether she. shall ever, have another poet. The great, hook?, that create an era arc few “and far between. Many a nuth'has imagined himself to ho a ShakeSpsare, but tliefo has never been buf'ohe. Scientists are plentiful as blackberries, and a noisy brood they are; but tiie Bacon's, the Newtons, the Darwins, appear at rare intervals. Great is the company of preachers, but the Spurgeons and Beechers are few, and the great theologians are fewer still. Karo souls whom God has hewn after a large mould, we must leave the world’s supreme tasks to them. But there are a hundred little things in this place which you can do, and which are crying to be done. The greatest tiling ■ is poor if the little thing bo not done. The miserablest homes I have ever known have often been those that ought to have been the happiest. The house was a palace; the head of the household had worked hard, he could command every luxury, and it was his one pride that everything was at the dispocal of every member of his home circle; art had done its best, culture had added its sweetest ministries; everything there —but the delicate courtesies, the ingenious devices of hive, which are life’s most perfect graces. Poor Mrs Carlyle—hers is one of the most pathetic stories of the century to me. A brilliant soul—fit mate for any man however giited; she laid commanded everything she hikhever bidden tor fame renown, eclat, but her heart was starved. She pined for the Jove that that would have been like the dew i<> her soul. Do we hear ihe c.-v of the neglected and lonely-heai ted Y You pretend to come Jilt - to worship God and to study the Lord .Icmis, and you never even say “Good morning" to tiie man who is a stranger, and who needs and longs for somebody’s “good morning” more than any brilliant thing that may come from ttie pulpit. What people miss is not'brilliancy in-tho pulpit, it is what you can give—“tho cup of cold water.” The smallest and simplest ministries receive the fullest recognition* of our Lord. It is small men neglect the minor courtesies, which do so much to oil the wheels, to soften the jars, and to heal the heartaches of the world. You take a flower into a si:k room, and the sufferer sees the ■land of summer and inhales the ucath of the garden in it. God has looked upon it, and it has blushed into beauty. it, is an altar, and your love burns upon it, and sweet is the incense of it to the weary one. Von talk of “the language of Howms,” why that is the language of flowers the chant which the flower sings by that sick-bed. Great are little tilings, and Christ reads everything. Ho is the Supreme Poet, and the “cup of cold water” is a divine lyric to Him. I have seen the glass indicator set in the front of tho steam boiler, a small tube three inches long or so. It told me what force of steam was working in that boiler and I knew exactly what power of work was hidden there. So the smallest tiling may indicate the force of Christian life, the store of self-denial and

the power of Christian service there is in you. Christ misses nothing of the meaning of the smallest act, and amazement fills those whom lie sets on His right hand, “inasmuch as vo did it unto one of GiosC little ones yo did it unto me.” Y’ou have been a watcher over a sick -bed, a prisoner. You have envied those whoso hands were free, your hands have always been tied; you have, no record in church history. Liston! Tin's will he the summing up of it : “Ye did it unto 31 e.” And the wonder of that will lill you for over.