SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 4 March 1933, Page 14 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

Sy

the late REV. A. H. COLLINS

THE IDEAL CITIZEN. “Behave as citizens worthily.”—Phil. 1-27 (Marginal Reading.) Being the first of four addresses on “Religion and National Life.” Philippi was not only the chief city of Macedonia; it was a colony of Rome. The Philippians enjoyed the rights and privileges of Roman citizenship as much as if they had been residents in the Imperial city itself. Their names were on the roll of its freemen. They were reckoned among the Roman tribes, and to be a Philippian was to be a Roman though away from Rome. So that when the Apostle, writing to his Christian brothers in. that city, said: “Behave as citizens worthy of the Gospel,” it was as if he said: “Remember the dignity of the Empire City which has enrolled you amongst her sons; forget not what is due to Rome; act your noblest; be your best.” More than once in this letter St. Paul alludes to the proud circumstance that the Philippians were citizens of the Roman Empire, and finds in it an illustration of higher things. For just as the Philippians, though resident .in Macedonia, were members of the Roman Em-

pire, enjoyed its advantages, shared its protection, and obeyed the laws of Caesar, so Christian men, though dwelling on the earth, are citizens of that sacred and invisible city, “whose Maker and Builder is God.” “Our citizenship is in heaven,” he writes. We dwell down here, but we share the rights and honours of the Kingdom of God, the right of access to our Immortal King, the right of place in the Father’s house, the right of domicile under the protecting wing of the Almighty. RIGHTS IMPLY DUTIES. But rights imply duties, privileges carry obligations. Hence Saint Paul adds this word: “Behave as citizens worthily.” Act according to the eternal fitness of things. Cultivate a sense of what is becoming in such relationship. If Roman citizenship required that they never forget the Imperial splendours, the glory of its traditions, the proud distinction of its tribes, how much more should Christian people bear themselves nobly. Times of difficulty were at hand. Adversaries were seeking to corrupt their faith and break their courage. They must meet the tyrants’ brandished steel with dauntless fortitude. The awful profligacy of Roman public life must find effective rebuke in the lustrous garments of their Christian virtues, and the unyielding righteousness 'of their conduct. Not with the sullenness of the Roman stoic, but with the graces of the Christian character, must they put to silence the wickedness of evil men. The struggle might be fierce and protracted, but in the end the anvil would break the hammer by receiving its blows with “masterly inactivity.” “Behave as citizens worthily.” THE RANGE OF HUMAN CONDUCT. You will notice I have chosen my text from the marginal reading of the Revised Version. I have-mot done this by chance, or from loye of novelty. The choice is deliberate, for the Revised Version sets forth a truth that is not to be overlooked in the Authorised Version, where it reads: “Let your conversation be as it becometh the Gospel.” Need I remind you that the word “conversation” is not used of the speech which passes between man and man, but that it covers the whole range of human conduct/. A man’s “walk and conversation” includes his entire life, and, read that way, the passage would make good sense, But the word used here is not that word. This particular word is not used in any other part of St. Paul’s letters. Literally it means to be a citizen and to discharge a citizen’s duty, and the special value of this fresa, and striking translation lies in the fact that it brings home the thought that Christian men and women have a public duty to perform no less than a private life to live, and that in both spheres religion requires that our public duty be discharged in a worthy way; not simply done, but well done. Jesus Christ’s Gospel is associated with a code of honour and a standard of duty the highest and purest. HANDSOME DOING. x Religion is not simply doing, it is handsome doing. Christ stated this with clearness in the Sermon on the Mount: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” Christian duty is not something less than Jewish obligation; it is something more. “What do ye more than others?” said Jesus Christ. It is pot enough that you live like the “publican” who has no religion or like the pharisee whose religion is skin deep. “Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter the Kingdom of Heaven." The Christian citizen is the highest type of citizen. Before his eyes must shine the fairest civic ideals, on his conscience should rest the most serious obligations. His motives should be the purest and the ends he seeks must be the most clearly and emphatically Christian. You will admit this. But now will you turn to the law and the prophets, for the patriot’s love of his country never found more perfect example than in the Hebrew tribes. The Old Testament is the most patriotic book in all the world. Never on the fair face of this green earth' has history produced a patriot so constant and devoted in his love of fatherland, so heroic in its defence, so proud of its honour, as the Jew. How unparalleled his endurance! How unequalled his suffering! Never did faith in his country falter or fail, so that one cannot look into the face of a son of Abraham, and a descepdant of the Maccabees, and not feel a rush of warm emotion and something akin to reverence. St. Paul belonged to that elect race. He was “a Hebrew of Hebrews,” and he inherited those proud traditions. Patriotism was a fire in his blood. He believed that the love of country which made men so true and great under the Old Testament had not been wiped out under the New Testament. The glowing pictures of a happy people and a perfect state, which the prophets predicted, the sorrowful wail of these men in exile, have they left no trace behind in the Christian conscience? Would it not have been strange if Jesus Christ had belittled citizenship, struck Moses in the face, and set His church in opposition to the city and the State? The State, no less than the church and the home, is a divine institution. “The powers that be are ordained of God,” and he is not a worthy son of any State or a good citizen of any community who does not seek to promote its welfare in every possible way. He is not a worthy citizen who does not take honest pride in its best traditions, and seek to elevate the tone of public life and public morals, aye, and public manners. THE CHRISTIAN SPIRIT. You cannot be a good Christian and a bad citizen. Christianity requires of us

that we carry Christian laws and the Christian spirit into civic and national affairs, into our educational institutions, ..into the lighting of our streets, the formation of our roads, and the flushing of our drains; into house-build-ing, the preservation of parks and open spaces, into the closing of hotels, the suppression of gambling, and the closing of houses of ill-fame and the whole round of municipal and Parliamentary duty. In a free country like our own, with free democratic institutions, the public business of town or borough or village is the business of every man and woman in the community. As Mazzini said: “The end of politics is to apply the moral law to the civil organisations of society,” or, as Dr. R. W. Dale said: “I cannot see how the will of God is ever likely to be done on earth as it is done in heaven, if Christian men do not consider how the law of Christ is to be illustrated in the legislation and policy of the State.” Of course, I know that position is challenged. I know there are good people who, by a curious misreading of Scripture and the cultivation of fastidious piety, have come to believe that they must not soil their lily-white hands with politics, civic or national. They take no part in public affairs. They imagine it was of such Jesus Christ was thinking when He prayed that His followers might be in the world and yet not out of it. I believe it to be an entire misconception. Our Lord never intended His followers should stand aloof from public life and leave the cities, to go to perdition—the perdition of drink and harlotry and ignorance. He is Lord of All. On His head are many crowns—crowns of authority in home and city and State. The ideal Christian is the ideal citizen, who, while confessing Christ to be Saviour and Lord, goes down into the battle to win the high places and fields of fair renown, for God and home and humanity. SCIENCE OF SOCIAL CONDUCT. Politics is the science of social conduct Every act outside the domestic circle is a political act, and you cannot get outside the realm of politics except you get outside the realm of life. Politics is the science of life, the doctrine of the way I am to do my daily duty to my neighbour, which is part of personal religion. We have a citizen duty to discharge, and very much depends on the way in which we discharge this obligation. Municipal duty calls for brains and time and high moral ideals, and it is disquieting that so few of our most gifted and capable men are prepared to make the sacrifice Involved. Perhaps we are to blame for this by withholding generous praise for those who serve. Leadership is often a thankless task, for our public men are exposed to all kinds of suspicions and abuse from selfish and small-minded people. It was Carlyle, I think, who said that “he who would be a great poet must first make himself a poem,” and in the same way the ideal citizen must first be a good man. No State can long endure without Spiritual guidance and control, but every man can contribute to the greatness of his town and country by standing for the highest things. The only true and worthy diplomacy is perfect truthfulness. The only international law is perfect honesty, and the only true nobleness is love of God and man. All our great public questions, questions of education, trade, poverty and public amusements, are at bottom moral questions. A chastened temper, a tongue that speaks no slanders, cheerfulness amid petty worries, thoughtfulness for others rather than ourselves, and, above all, purity of heart, these are the stones that build the walls of the holy city, and that city must first be builded in our own heart. THE SAVIOURS OF ENGLAND. Look over the history of our Motherland and you will find that its saviours have been men of a devout and serious spirit. When that arch conspirator, James IL, was seeking to sell our fathers to a Jesuitical priesthood, it was the father of John Wesley who stood up and preached from the text: —“Be it known unto you, 0 King, that we will not bow down and worship the golden image which they have set up.” When the seven Bishops of immortal memory chose to go to prison and risk life in loyalty to conscience, it was because they recognised the obligations of Christian citizenship. There was a time in Great Britain when godly man stood at the helm of public affairs. It was the Puritan era, and one who was no friend of Cromwell said: “England was like to become a land of Saints and a pattern of holiness to the world.” It was not Chatham, or Burke, or Fox, who saved Eng-, land in the 18th century; it was Wesley and Whitfield, We should remember these things. An enlightened Christian conscience applied to civic and State affairs is the demand of the hour, for it is by the definite, courageous application of Christ’s law to the public life of the Dominion that we shall be happy, prosperous and free. “You glory,” said Cromwell, “in that ditch which guards your shores. I tell you unless you reform yourselves, your ditch will be no defence.”

When John Bright was nearing the end, he uttered these singularly noble words: “During these 25 years I have endured measureless insult and passed through hurricanes of abuse. My clients have generally been the poor and lonely. They cannot give me place and dignities and wealth, but honourable service in their cause, yields me that which is far higher and more lasting value—the consciousness that I have laboured to expound and uphold laws which, though they were not given among the thunders of Sinai, are not less commandments of God and not less intended to promote and secure the happiness of men.” In that spirit let us serve the town in which we live, and the Dominion of which it is a part. It was said of Gladstone that he saved the soul of England. It is for us to help and save the soul of New Plymouth and the soul of New Zealand. To its natural beauties and its material resources we must add public spirit and pure religion.