SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 4 August 1934, Page 2 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

By the Rev.

J. D. McL. WILSON

THE LESSON OF TITUS

MAKING THE BEST OF THE WORST. SOME MODERN PARALLELS. “F6r this cause I left thee in Crete, that thou shOuldest set in order the things that .Were wanting.”—Titus 1-5. The sentence above is an interesting and revealing one. Paul had left Titus at Crete. Geographically, the great island was an ideal place of residence; morally it was a lazer-house. You perhaps can imagine Titus writing to Paul from there and saying, “This is an absolutely impossible place. No good purpose can be Served by me remaining here. The people are a godless and profane crew, steeped in immorality and vice. Worse still, they are satisfied with themselves, and indifferent about their fate. It’s a demoralising place for a Christian, and hopeless from the Gospel ministry standpoint. I trust you will make an opportunity for me to get out of this wretched place before winter comes. Yours obediently and most unhappily.—Titus.” You can imagine, likewise, Paul’s reply. Paul was a man of stern fibre. He never shrank, and he never expected his followers to shrink from the challenge of a difficult situation. He was one of those people who gain stimulus from a hostile environment. So he began: "Titus, my own son in the faith; the blessing of God and His dear Son Jesus Christ be upon you. You are quite right about the Cretans. They are all that you have said, and more. Indeed one of their own writers, Epimen ides, declared that all Cretans were liars, evil beasts and idle gluttons. Crete is probably one of the worst places on God’s earth, but that was the very reason I sent you there. For this cause —their gross darkness, their base sinning, their sore need, I left thee in Crete.” That is how one of our modem writers sums up the situation. You can easily guess how Titus felt when he received that letter. He was not very happy, not at all cheered, not very pleased with his chief. We only hope he did not talk too much about it, for it is not usually what we think about causes and people that does the damage but what we say and do. But after brooding over it and praying over it he came to the conclusion that Paul was right. He saw that the field of difficulty may be either a field of despair or a field of honour; the place of sin a place of failure or a place of victory and salvation. He came to see that- this island of devil’s shame might be a most glorious sphere for the power “<Jf God’s grace; that God had set him there not to whine, not to be craven and turn tail, not to be corrupted by it all, but, to be a diligent witness until the darkness gave place to the light and the good banished the evil. So when his mental outlook changed he went to work with a will, and the character of the little discouraged church arid of the whole island was completely altered. There is a parable there true to nature and human nature. They tell uS that three-quarters of a century ago the land from New Plymouth to Wanganui was covered with almost impenetrable bush, and inhabited with hostile natives. It Was an evil country, men said, and no fit place for European settlement, and many left it. Others, however, saw the same country and said it was a good land, a land of infinite possibility, and they stayed upon it. To-day it is a fair province of rolling downs, smiling fields —a garden of New Zealand. Similarly a little over half a century ago, a great area of the Waikato was under water. It was treacherous swamp, a death trap for stock and dangerous for man. People passed it by as a place accursed. But others saw in that morass another picture; and to-day it is finely roaded, thickly dottea with farms, and boasts some of the "best pasture land in New Zealand.

It is so in human nature. We look at the slums, at certain dark places of superstition, cruelty and evil in the world, and. say: “What can God or man do there ? And in the pagan communities rise up disciples, as worthy of a. place among the glorious company of the 12 Apostles as several in that original band. And so in narrower and more intimate

ways too. For example, when in poverty, or brought down by misfortune, grief, pain or death, we say: “What a terrible situation is ours!” It is inevitable that such a condition should blight the heart, rob us of the bloom of happiness, and hinder all our growth and fruitful enterprise. But is it so ? If we examine life and circumstance aright we shall find therein a parable which may be read or misread, which may bring us down to weakness and despair if we permit it to master us. Or it may lead us on to stouter life and greater serviceableness as we meet its challenge and subdue it to our will and purpose. There are, for instance, Homer and Milton in their blindness, and in older days how grave a handicap And how terrible a misfortune 1 Have you ever read the “Illiad and the Odyssey,” “Paradise Lost and Regained,” or above all, "Samson Agonistes,” where is but dimly veiled that personal struggle for hope and the tablelands of usefulness? Some of you may have read of that young man who set out upon an impossible adventure, to Jamaica, to win the slaves for Christ. So grievous, however, were the wrongs suffered at the hands, of the white man that they would not listen to the ardent, youthful teacher. At length, despairing of their confidence, the brave fellow had himself sold as a slave, and wrought in the fields under the. overseer’s lash—a much more grievous situation than Titus. The fellowship of suffering won their confidence and love, and when the day s tasks were done the poor creatures crowded about him to receive Christ’s bread of life and cup of salvation. His witness was not m vain. Long years after he had fallen asleep in that sugar plantation the story of his heroism came to the ears of Wilberforce, and armed him with courage invihcible against Britain's traffic in flesh and blood. SOon the slaves in the . West Indies, in the British Empire, and in the Americas were freed. There is a legend of an artist who longed for a piece of sandalwood out of which to carve a Madonna. He was about to give up ■in despair with the dream of life unrealised when he had a vision in which he was bidden to shape the figure out of a block of wood destined for the fire. Obeying the command he produced from the log a masterpiece. There is a minor poet named Sill who points a similar lesson: — This I beheld There spread 3 cloud Of dust along a plain; And underneath tire cloud, or in it, raged A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince’s banner Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes. A craven hung along the battle’s edge, And thought “Had I a sword of keener steel— That blue blade the king’s son bears —but this Blunt thing”—he snapped and flung it from his hand, And lowering crept away and left the field. Then came the king’s son wounded, sore bestead, And weaponless, saw the broken sword, Hilt buried in the dry and trodden sand, And ran and snatched it, and with battle shout. Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down, And saved a great cause that heroic day. It is not for uS'to be downhearted and despairing in any of life’s circumstances. Remember Titus. With his soul fortified in God he became One of Paul’s most trusted and efficient helpers. To-day excavators are laying bare the foundations of stately churches, from which, thanks to Titus, there went forth teachers, preachers, and missionaries of the Cross to make grand crusade against the paganism in the Roman Empire. The worst may be the best; the hardest and most galling circumstance may make the finest tempering of character; the darkest den of sin may provide the most glorious opportunity for the triumph of the Gospel. The Cretans were liars, evil beasts, idle gluttons, the most hopeless of humanity. “But,” says Paul to Titus, “for that very reason I left thee there.”