SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 20 June 1931, Page 14 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

|! By 3 1 gSMiiifiHnmHiiiHiiiiiiiii

the late REV. A. H. COLLINS

“THE SECRET OF SERENITY-" < ~ “ i —Realm 130- i ' This is one of the shortest and sweet- i est of the Psalms; it is also one ot < the most Christian in temper and tone , The traces of humility and resignation 61nne°her«. As St. Paul said, he was . an apostle “born out of due season, so we might say of this Psalm. The . bird sings ere the sun is up. The spirit of the Saviour , breathes through the . sone* and we might almost expect it t eruTwith the beatitude, “Blessed are the “ Elsewhere, in the Psalter, we hear the erv of confession, the wail of suffering, the questionings of the perplexed, e fierce battle shout of defiance, and the paeans of victory. ? u V°i "pAelrt k here. Quiet is the Psalmist s heart and still. God's benediction of peace rests on the lowly heart. The Wo the Almighty has hushed the fretful child to rest. “My soul is even as a weaned child.” The pathetic figure tells of nast struggle and present peace. The child has passed through its dis( l ude and repining, and once more sleeps contentedly in its mother s arms; so the sweet singer of Israel ’f f ™m vain ambitions and. rebellious and finds in God full satisfaction and perfect peace. THE FRUITS OF EXPERIENCE. : No clue is given to the authorship of the Psalm or to tho occasion ot its cc -position. It is generally attributed to David, and there seems to be no reason for doubting that it cornea from his pen, and belongs to his later years. Into the opal calmness of this quiet meditation age and experience have condensed their final lesson. The State> ot mind -is beautiful and rare, and. you would hardly expect to find it in one Whose state was kingly, and whose foes were not a* few* When you recall David a early z and the rapid and magnificent strides bv which he reached a throne; when X bethink you ol the kind «! ™ler ho became—the idol of his army and adored of his subjects—tins is not quite the strain you;would expect. Eastern despots are not, as a rule, patterns of meekness; and there are passages m David’s life which clearly show that he was not always mild-mannered. But as he tells us, he had schooled his iheart to patience. “I have behaved and huieted myself”; literally, “I have stilled and hushed my 6 <?ul.”.The idea, is that of a man checking and restraining himaelf He had taken himself in hand and dealt faithfully .with, that turbu- > '.lent compound,. For reasons which do not appear, he had been ,m a stormy mood. He had been uneasy, fretful, dissatisfied, like a child passing through its first Tumbles. It was ; not so much that his soul had been up in arms against its fate, as that it had been chafed and irritated, with, a geneial sense of discontent. And now, by the. arace of God, all that was over. Hehad weaned himself from thoughts and hopes and aims that were too great for him, and learned the lesson of Divine content.

SECRET OF SOUL TRANQUILLITY. Here, then, is the lesson we need to learn, the secret .of soul tranquility; and the open sesame of that great boon is the suppression of self-will, the quiet and cheerful acceptance of the limitaof life? For the text tells, how .this good may be ours, through failure :accepted.in meekness; the benediction which rests on disappointments taken with a good grace; the peace which follows defeat received with resignation. , But here I want to guard myself against ■ possible misunderstanding. • 1 (1) I am not thinking of the disappoinments Which dog the heels of those : whose “vaulting ambition o erleaps itself.” When Babylon’s men build and ! boast, only to-find their building and their boasting overturned,, yhen we ; dream dreams of ease and. sinful pleasure, only- to find the coveted prize withheld, we may not take shelter in a word . like this. ' ■ , . (2) Nor -am I thinking of failures which can easily be explained. Some men fail for reasons quite obvious. they ‘ have fine abilities, immense energy, but they are deficient in tactfulness. Iney have not learned the art of living with the people.' They lack the uncommon quality-of -commonsense. H (3) There is a third class, but that comes to grief through sheer lack of will. They are good starters, but soon tire. They seldom carry a project through. For a time the bright idea lures them on, and then the light fades out of their eye, and they sink back into the commonplace and the humdrum. They’ remind one of- De Quincey,. of whom it was said that “he never ed anything except his sentences. THE SACRIFICE OF HOPES. But our text belongs to an entirely different class, men and women who labour longhand, earnestly, • for . things right and good. Their work is wisely pruned, their aims are high, their motives are pure, yet they do not sue-

ceed. Unexpected difficulties arine. They conceive holy designs, like that of David to build a house of- prayer; but thenplan is laid aside. The sacrifices some are called, to make are not the surrender of a pleasure, or the relinquishment of a prize, but tho abandonment of some cherished purpose by .which they had hoped to glorify God. the opportunity they have hoped for, and prepared themselves to embrace, comes at last, and they find it is'not for them after all. John Ruskin tells how the light of hope was quenched in him by the failure of his health. “Just when I was coming out of school, very sorry for havipg been such a foolish boy. yet having taken a prize or two, and expected now to enter upon some more serious business than cricket, I am dismissed by tho Master I hoped to serve with. ‘That’s all I want of. you sir.’” To give up what is dear to us may be comparatively easy, but to give up what we thought dear to Christ; to bind, on the altar the one bright offering of tho heart! Ah! that is hard, and yet that sometimes has to bo done to the bitter end. for no angel voice stays the uplifted knife.

INEVITABLE DISAPPOINTMENTS. Now what shall we say of euch experiences? Well, the first thing to say is that such disappointments are inevitable. We are prone to exaggerate our powers and hold the opposing forces too cheaply. We begin the Christian life with high hopes. We are ardent and enthusiastic; and this is right. You would not expect much from a youth who is not a dreamer. If a man is to do much, he must expect to do a good deal. If he would move a stone he must dream of moving mountains. But sooner or later he learns his limitations; it may be only a vague, undefined fear, a. dim presentiment, then it grows to a conviction that he cannot accomplish all he desired. “The youthful hope of the ideal is a world too wide for the shrunken shanks of the actual.” Moses saw the Land of Promise from afar, but could not enter it, and that was his testing. For there is no surer test of character than the way we carry ourselves under defeat. Success lias slain its thousands and failure its tens of thousands. Some otow hard and cynical under it; others go on with obstinacy or cling with jealousy to the position they cannot fill. Some fall to self-pity, and others seek to disparage other men’s work. One of the finest traits in John the Baptist was his cheerful contentment to accept obscurity and silence, to which he was consigned when Christ appeared “He must increase but 1 must decrease,” said John, and that exquisite touch of Christian humility transfigured his noble soul ,as when the softened Imht of sunset falls on granite peaks. If 5 supplies evidence that a man may be victorious in defeat, and that while success is good, failure may be even better; that disappointment may bring ' a richer dower than achievement, and that no man need be ashamed or afraid of defeat after the experience of Christ I on the Cross.

ACCEPTANCE OF GOD’S WILL. And vet this Serenity of eouly this suppression of self-will, this glad acceptance of God’s will, does not come without a struggle, sometimes a prolonged struggle. I have said this passage echoes a stormy mood. Davids life had been wind-swept ' and stormtossed; but the force has spent itself. He accepts the limitations of his lot. He is at last ‘•willing, having tried all other ways, to try just Gode way. “Lord, my heart is not haughty. This does not mean torpor, just sitting with folded hands in dull inaction; neither is it weakly ceasing from effort and doing nothing because he cannot do what he would. It is submission blended with hope. It is the persuasion that although we may seem to tail, God’s cause will not fail. It is the conviction that though the harvest may not ripen in our time, nevertheless the harvest will ripen. Oh! it is infinitely pathetic to read of men going to heathen lands to lay the foundation of Christ’s kingdom and at the close ot a hard life seeing only the removal of some of the rubbish from the place where other hands shall build. Gilmour amongst the Mongolians, Mackay of Uganda, and a host beside, thwarted, hindered, foiled, and dying amid broken hopes, and ruined plans, yet able to say calmly, “Even so Father.” But I tell you that the joy of conquest is poor compared with the ecstasy of such self-renunciation. • , The complacency of attainment, the. pride of conquest, the flush of success, crows pale beside the peace of such surrender; for if there is one way, more than another in which we may glorify i God, it is when we, take the bitter cup of life's disappointments, and say, “Nevertheless, not as I will.” In this way we may be victorious over defeat, by accepting it. Humility is the supreme grace of Christian souls, and when we meekly bow before the will of God, we are crowned with glory and honour “To do ths will of Jesus, this' is best.”