SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 23 February 1935, Page 14 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

By th»

Rev. J. D. McL. WILSON

< HAVE KEPT THE FAITH

THE REQUIEM OF PAUL. SOLE POSSESSION AT LAST! "I MS mw rOady td .be. Offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I nave fd'S&ht A fcoOd 'fight, I have- finished my cdurse, I have the faith. Henceforth there is laid up . fi>r mfe a. ctowh of righteousness, ■ which the Lord, the righteous ,judge, shall 'give me at that - days Mifi nt>t to me 'only, but to all them that love his appearing.” ---2 Tim., 4-6, 7, 8. I have kept the faith! Those noble words’form part of the requiem of one who, ram to Jesus Christ, was the greatest Mita of'his day and generation, the apostle, Paul. At almost three score years and tefi, he lay ■ chained in pne of Nero’s prisons' awaiting. execution; and.it was there* «n the very lips bf .the grave, that he Uttered the heroic words of the text. “I have fought a good fight . . There' Is nothing.' self-righteous or boastful about them, hnd certainly no • pridefhl 'affectation of ‘stoicism. The old warrior is putting off his- armour, and in these' simple words he records-a. fact which; he as .confident will bring encouragement to his youthful., friend, who has just entered seriously upon life’s assay. “I have fought in a good fight; I have run my course;’l have kept the faith* (Moffatt’s version). In sober truth there seems little else that he had kept. Of his family’s noble name and designation, won from the Rbmin Emperor, there is here not a hint. Of his -Own once proud national and religious associations there is not a trace. Of all the rich patrimony there is only an -Old cloak and a few broken parchments left Of the friends of his boyhood and manhood—they are all gone. Persecution tad desertion have plucked them from his Side until* as he pathetically disserved, “only Luke is with me.” He was stripped bare, as every man must be when, early or late, he faces death and the grave. Naked, from but the far abyss behind us, we enter here, Into the silent, starless night before us, naked we glide. But for -our characters, we go forward, absolutely alone. For Paul. time, like the fabled Greek dragta, had voraciously devoured all he . hid, until at the last only one thing remained. In the possession of the Old ■ man was left a solitary jewel for which everything had been sacrificed—pride of race, pride of family, friends, the alluring hopes of youth, the magnificent prospects of early manhood, once on the very eve of fulfilment. All gone; for the sake of a unique something which in the eyes of the world was worthless, but which in the judgment of Paul, and God, and eternity, was of such exceeding value that beside it all else was as nothing, as refuse. And with that Shining in his bosom he steps over the brink of the grave to meet God, judgment and , all that the unknown might contain, confident that for him and all that loved the Lord and strove to do His will there awaited a crown of glory Which faded not away. When we think of it, how small a portion of life’s possessions are left with us at the end! It would seem that no man eta sail the seas of time without losing overboard by his Own jettisoning, hand, or by the storms of life, the precious freight he would, so carefully carry. _ For example, how few friends remain with us to the last. Leath, the sundering seas, one of a hundred circumstances or perils strike them from our side until we are left, like the great apostle, With ■ only some faithful Luke beside us, or like Thomos Moore in his pathetic song, “Oft in the Stilly Night,” with but a sad memory of the friends, faces, smiles and teats of other days around us. Again, how few are the hopes, the aims, the ambitions, which once fired us and drove us onward and assured us of honourable

place in the world that abide with us to the days of our latter end. Or again consider the very faith we now profess and contrast it with that simple trust and confidence of our childhood, when God was so real and true, when Jesus was so patently our friend and saviour, when heaven was so sure and near, and life had no fears, no hidden dread and no bitterness. Our life is like nothing SO much as an incident of our boyhood at a Sunday school picnic. Upon a strong lad was placed a rough jacket to which had been attached scores of little bags containing trinkets and lollies. He was Set to run through the grounds, and after him there raced an eager band of children intent to pluck from him the desirable things he carried. In a little While he was Stripped of all he had and was left alone. So we run our course through life, and on every side are outstretched a thousand hands of temptation, of desire, to pluck from us the things we guard so Carefully, until at the end we are left with—what? Some of us, alas, find we have lost all that was most precious. We have kept the business, the farm, our wealth,. Our pleasures; but we have lost our ideals, our purity, Our honour and our integrity. We have preserved the glittering bauble, the showy counterfeit, the things of seeming worth; and lost the matchless riches, spiritual and eternal, which wax not old nor fade away. What Will it matter to the end, or nbw, to the clear and equal sight Of God, if all is gone except that holy living faith to Christ which assures salvation and true life here and peace and felicity to the world beyond? Or what Will it matter if, possessing all, even the whole world, we lose that sure and steadfast hope which entereth in; even within the veil. ' ■ One of' the saddest sights of existence -is to see age and youth letting go or flinging aside to- indifference and contempt the most precious things to life. When one thinks of the noble men and women who strove unto blood to keep what they so lightly despise; when one thinks of the princely heroes who rotted to a thousand dungeons and perished to a thousand fires and floods rather than lose what these heedless ones so careless- < ly let slip, it seems there could be.no more incredible or tragic folly to time or eternity. Hold fast what the Son of God and His saints and martyrs committed to the world for its redemption and healing—a life-giving faith to Jesus Christ; not the particular shibboleth of your own or any other creed, but that simple trust to the love and mercy of God the Father everlasting, and that saving friendship of Christ, the Son of the Blessed. Hold it fast like that seraph Abdiel of whom Milton wrote: — Among the faithless; faithful only he! Among innumerable false; unmoved, unshaken, unseduced, unterrified! His loyalty he kept; his love; his seal! Nor number nor example with him wrought to swerve him from the truth or change his constant mind. There is a noble symbol of what our faithful trust ought to be to the great sculpture hall of Paris. It is a large statue in memory of a soldier who fell at Verdun to 1916. It shows him as they found him, lying upon his back across a heap of rubbish. His left, arm clutches the fatal wound to his breast. His stiff right arm is raised high over his head. In his clenched hand is a folded paper. It was an urgent despatch, beseeching reinforcements. A comrade seeing the paper fluttering to the dead hand took it, read it, and bearing it to its destination, Saved a hardly pressed unit from annihilation. But there he lay faithful even'unto death. i - ' . Life and its possessions are to bO judged, nOl simply to. the light of changeful and faulty human opinion but in the equal scales of God and eternity; and happy are we if through life, and when-we. face, the last great adventure, there is cherished to bur hearts the gospel of the grace of God, and we too can say aS the herb of bld, “I have run my. course of life; I. have fought in the good fight; and—l have kept the faith.”