SUNDAY COLUMN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 74, 23 March 1912, Page 3

SUNDAY COLUMN.

A FAITHFUL CREATOR. (By Rev. F. B. Meyer, 8.A., London.) “Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of Cod commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator”—l Peter iv., 19. (Conclusion.) To such a soul, in such a state, God ■ never gives an audible reply, God never says in so many words, this or that. His reply is voiceless and unsyllabled, but it steals in upon the soul insensibly; and after week’s, or months, or years have passed, the soul knows—not that it was ever told, but it' knows. It is a long process. This learning the will of the Creator takes time. In the meanwhile, what is the soul to do ? Lot it go on in well-doing, nothing else. Always “committing the keeping of their souls to Him in welldoing.” Frequently when people are suffering they become rash; tiny are prepared to throw their lives away. The sufferer says, “What is the good of my being good? Why should I endeavour any more to maintain a noble and sweet character? May I not Ho down and die? May I not surrender my post? May I .not cast myself into the battle, take up the first bayonet that comes to hand, and press the point to my heart?” No, .no; keep where you are, doing well, -marking time, fulfilling your life-programme, .assisting everyone around you to be the better for your living. “In welldoing” ; not only righteous living, but beneficent living; not only doing what is right for your own character and conduct, but blessing others. Go on doing well, and believe that your path, some day, will climb out of the darksome valley to where the sunlight is lying on the hills. The Special Responsibility which such Cast upon the Creator. “The keeping of their souls.” Let those that suffer according to the will of God commit to Him the keeping of their souls. What, then, is the sou'l ? A garden ? Probably one of those old-fashioned gardens with its high walls! “A garden enclosed in my 'sister, my spouse, my well-belov-ed.” And if it lie a garden enclosed, then the keeping of the walks, the tending of the flowers, and the .culture of the fruit-trees within this

| mystic enclosure of our nature, should I ho handed over to the great Husbandman and Gardener, God. Just because He made the soul. He can keep it. Just because' He elected the- soul, and chose its 'soil, and cast in the seeds, Ho is able best to cultivate and maintain that which Ho originally made. ils the soul a fortress P Yes; it is like old Thebes with its hundred gates, and every gate gives access to the foe, and at all of them together, if the Prince of the power of the air chooses, an assault may be made. Many of us have wide gates open to sin, great tendencies and propensities towards uncleaunoss, passionate temper, and capricious jealousy; but God knows, and when we commit the keeping of our soul to Him, wo are committing it to One who best understand’s it because Ho has made it, made it with all its possibilities, with its frailty, exposed to all the insidious recoil of heredity. Ho best can keep it. Is the soul a musical instrument? Yes; it is a harp with a thousand strings; it is an organ of many pipes and stops; it is like the Aeolian lyre, the chords of which respond to every passing zephyr. The soul is all that, and there is no one that understands the wonderful combinations of the stops, no one that- can so delicately lay his hand upon the strings, no one that so perfectly knows the temperature needed to keep this sensitive instrument in harmony, or who can so soon restore it if lost, as the God that made it, the faithful Greater. Is the soul a jewel ? Yes, indeed, a transparent diamond, a flashing ruby, a jaspar, a pearl to obtain which Christ sold all that He had that He might purchase it to be His own. So priceless that the world would not suffice, if put in pawn for it. So inexpressibly rich'that it will be worthy evermore to flash in the diadem of eternity. This soul, so fragile, so precious, which the devil is doing all be can to steal, to purloin, to flaw, we dafre not hazard to keep by our own strength, but we will hand over the keeping of it to Him that made it, and who is a faithful Creator. Is not this a thought to help us? God is faithful to the blood, God is faithful to the tears, God is faithful to the sacrifice of Christ; but Ho is also faithful to us whom He loves, as the creatures of His hand, and who stand before Him “accepted in the Beloved.” Not only as chosen sons, hut as fdrgiven and restored creatures, we may look to Him as a faithful Creator.-