SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 27 September 1930, Page 14 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

By

REV. A. H. COLLINS

OUR UNPOSSESSED POSSESSIONS. "And the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.” —Obadiah. 17. This is not simply a skilful play on words. It is an arresting statement of a deep truth —the distinction between ownership and possession. “The house of Jacob.” The land was theirs —theirs by Divine decree and theirs by right of conquest. They owned, but did not enjoy it. It was on the map and they held the title deeds, but they had not explored its broad acres and its hidden stone. They were the heirs of all the a"es and lived like paupers. The Australian blackfellow owned a continent and lived in a whurley! The house ot Jacob owned Canaan ami lived in exile. Paul speaks of being “poor, yet making manv rich”; the sons of Jacob reversed the process, and though rich, made many poor. I know a man who made a fortune and on the strength of a delusion he bought a palace, and began to build a church, and died in disgrace. The sons of Jacob inherited wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, and dreamed jioverty and. bonds. How much rightly belongs to us that we never claim and use! Privilege not enjoyed, faculties never cultivated. We possess a universe and occupy a cave. We have a Bible ami miss a revelation. God is our Father and we live like orphans. Unpossessed possessions! Let me speak of that. STARVATION AMID PLENTY. More than 20 years ago a steamer went to pieces on the Great Barrier, north of "Auckland. A few of the passengers escaped on a raft and drifted about the Tasman Sea till all died of hunger and exposure. When the raft was tossed ashore it was found tluit the cylinders of which the raft was composed were stored with provisions, and the ship’s company perished within the reach of the very stores tjicy needed. “God, the faithful Creator” has stored the earth with ample provisions to meet the needs of evei'y living soul —food for the body—knowledge for the mind, beautv for the eye, music for the ear, and fellowship, for the soul. “The eartli hath He given t;d the children 1 of men.” "i'et thousands starve for food, and beauty, and love, and whole nations perish for lack of the knowledge of-God. Emerson, in one of his essays, comments on the wealth and serviceableness of the world. All Nature works for the profit of man. The winds sow the seed, the sun evaporates the sea, rains feed the plants, and the plants nourish the animals. The private poor man has cities, canals and ships for them. He goes to the post office and the nation runs his errands, to the library, and the whole world reads and write's, for him. He goes to the court house and the nation waits to do him' justice and right his wrongs. “For us the winds do blow. “The earth doth rest, “Heaven moves and waters flow, AH things to our flesh are kind. . . . “Man is one world and hath another “To attend him.” THE POWER OF APPRECIATION. ; ' Bu t Ti'dw' little "of the world’s‘ ‘m-usie and beauty and wealth we possess? Y’onder stands Mount Egmont, mute in its majesty and magnificence. I nfver owiled a foot of it, but I lived in sight of it for six years, and it was more truly mine than if I held the title deeds and had no eye for its glory. I have seen some of the great pictures of the world. I never owned one of them, yet I possess them more truly than the blind men who hang them on their walls. I haven’t a fbot of land to my name; but if I haW' the faculty- of 'seeing, 1 the broad, acres are more surely mine than the man who simply reckons how many sheep they will carry to the acre. The value of things does not lie in legal ownership but in the power of appreciation. “I have no land; but I have a glorious landscape,” cried Dr. Parker. I’or thousands of years the world seemed to stand still*, scarcely anything was invented and few discoveries were made. There was no reason why Pharaoh should not have pursued the Israelites in airships, why Herod should not have broadcast his edict by wireless, why Nero should’ not have dashed along the Appian way in a limousine, and Nelson shattered the ships at Trafalgar by submarines. Radium and electricity were in the world before Babylon was built. The powers of the modern world, which seem so very wonderful, were simply waiting for man to claim and use, and we have only touched the fringe of the world’s wonders. Bishop Moule tells of an old woman who lived in straitened circumstances. Her husband died and left her nothing save a strip of land in Australia. She sold the land, except a barren plot of sandy waste, far away in “the never never,” which nobody wanted, and. the woman lived in indigent circumstances. Then the barren patch proved rich in precious metals, and was sold for a fabulous sum, and the woman was poor no more. Yet the gold was there all the time, and the owner did not possess her possessions, which thing is a parable. BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS ABOUND. If you turn from the world of things to the world of thoughts, the same is true. What a world of romance, and poetry, and philosophy is in books! For the price of a few tram rides we-could buy books once worth a king’s ransom, yet people spend more in one day on an article of dress than they spend in a decade on clothing for tlw mind, and even the books they own they do not possess. 1 have a copy of Shakespeare, Browning, Tennyson, Thompson, Carlyle rind some others. I own them, 1 paid for them, they are on my book shelves, but J dare scarcely say that I possess’them, for a book does not become ours by paying for it, nor by simply reading. Wo only possess when wo become interested in the author, appreciate his style .and enter into his thought. M e own a copy of the Bible,’and chant its praises, but do we possess? We only possess our possessions when tin; Holy Book rules its by its precepts, and its spirit, breathes through all our days and deeds. And if that is the test, 1 have to .confess with shame that after a lifetime of acquaintance with scripture. 1 am like Newton gathering pebbles on the shore of an illimitable sea. It is not the man who. buys an estate who possesses its beauty, but the man whose soul is turned to Nature, so that he sees the glory of the sunset and the light and shadow on the bills. “Other hands may own the field and forest, “Proud proprietors of pinup .ml shrine, “But with fervent love, if thou adorest, “Thou art wealthier—all the world is thiue.”

THE WORLD. OF. RELIGION. True as this is of Ihe world of thingis and the world of thought, it is most true of the world of religion. God is our Father, Christ is our Redeemer, the Holy Spirit is our strengthener, the future is our pledged possession, and "it doth not yet appear what we shall be.” Yet in the light of our actual possession, who dare say he possesses his possession? We speak about knowing God! 'What do we know? We speak of knowing Christ! What do we know? We speak of knowing the Gospel! What do we know? These are the subjects that the wisest and saintlicst of men have pondered for a lifetime, and confessed their limitations, and we scarce. <rive a quiet half-hour and our ideas of God, and His Son, and His Gospel are so glib and so crude! A few inontlis ago I was on my way to conduct the evening service, and in passing.. 1 heard a street preacher. He repeated one of the great texts, “lie that believeth hath everlasting life.” Again and again he repeated with glorious emphasis and assurance, ‘hath everlasting life.” "What does ‘hath’ mean?” ci'ied the preacher, and, answering his own question, he' said, “it means that you have got it, it is yours, your very own; and it is your very own the moment you believe.” The street preacher was right, sublimely right, and yet what multitudes do not possess their possessions! All things needful to salvation are the free gift of God. Eternal life is free. God’s gilt is without grudge or stint —not a few cold drops from the frozen pump of parish charity, but the rich, full, free, overflowing gift of the warmest healt in all the world. TO BE HAD FOR. THE ASKING. “Earth gets its price lor what eaith gives; ’The beggar is taxed for a corner to • die in, The priest hath his fee, who comes to shrive us, Wc bargain for the grave we lie in; At the devil’s booth all things are sold, Each ounce of dross costs an ounce of gold; For a cap and bells our life wc pay, Bubbles we buy for a whole souls tasking. ’Tis heaven alone that is given away, ’Tin only God may be had for the asking.” Why, then, do we not possess our possessions? To possess the earth we must explore it; to possess a book you must ponder it; to possess God wc must think and pray; to possess, everlasting life we ~niust experience it. A company of sceptics met to criticise the Bible. One of them spoke scornfully of the creation. “Who with commonsense could believe that God stooped down and picked up a piece of. mud and, breathing on it, changed it ’ into a man?' Absurd!” Well it is easy to. sneer at the Bible, especially if you don't read it; but it is not so easy to answer a transformed life like the following:— “You might ask me many quest.mis about the creation of man,” says one, “but I tell you there is one thing I know. God stooped down and picked up the dirtiest bit of mud and breathed on it by His spirit, and from that moment it was newly made and changed from a gambling, drinking, thieving wretch into a man of God. r| ’For: 23 years that changed bit of mud has never gambled, drank or thieved, and I was that bit of mud.”