AUSTRALIAN FLOODS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2473, 7 March 1893, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN FLOODS.

Sydney, March. 2,

A relief fund has been started in aid of the farmers who have suffered by the floods in the Clarence district.

The collection made at St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church, Temuka, on behalf of the sufferers by the floods in Queensland, realised £l7 13s Bd, a sum very creditable to the congregation. Collections on Sunday, in aid of the Queensland Relief Fund, were made at the Geraldine Presbyterian Church, and amounted to £8 4s 3d. This is a very fair sum considering that the district has already been well canvassed.

At the close of the harvest thanksgiving services on Sunday in the Presbyterian Church, Temuka,the congregational secretary was able to report a sum in hand of £lllos in aid of the Qeeenslaud Belief Fund, and this notwithstanding the fact that most of the members of the Church had already contributed to the fund started by the Temuka committee. The sum of £163 was cabled by the Mayor of Marton to Brisbane on Friday. SERMON ON CHARITY. In the Presbyterian Church, Temuka, on Sabbath last harvest thanksgiving services were held, and a collection was taken up for the Queensland relief fund. There was a good congregation. The Rev. John Dickson occupied the pulpit, and took for his text 11. Corinthians, ix., 6—“ He which soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall reap bountifully.” The preacher in his introduction pointed out how great was theiraportauce Paul attached to the grace of liberality to the poor, devoting two whole chapters to the subject. He intimated how, just as then, thousands of Je-.vs were clinging to the sacred city of Jerusalem, and living chiefly on charity. There were thousands then in a needy condition in that city, and the Macedonian and other Gentile Churches came generously to their aid. He went on to treat of the brotherly spirit and care for the poor which characterised the inauguration of the Gospel age. Rich and poor, bond and free, Jew and Gentile, forgot their differences and became all blended in the new brotherhood of Christ. Charity as we now realise it is a blessing which we owe to Christianity. Liberality, there was in the world before Christ came, but the profound brotherly self-imposed caretaking of others introduced by Christ had no previous existence. The aged, sick, and infirm were treated as they are now treated in heathen lands ; they were simply left to die, and the strong and youthful seemed disposed to think the world well rid of them as marring the general prosperity of the race. The poor were largely left to take care of themselves. In Plato’s ideal state there is no room for them. They are simply turned adrift a sort of public nuisance. Christianity, as exemplified in this text, taught the members of the early Church something different, with the result that many Christian communities came to the aid of the poor Saints in Jerusalem, just as different communities are now coming to the aid of the people of Queensland. The preacher pointed out how there was apparently in this text an appeal to selfishness, but it was only an appeal to an enlightened self-interest laid down by inspiration which infringed the rights of neither God nor man, and was on a par with “ Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved,” Mr Dickson here expatiated on the sin of selfishness, and showed how it has been branded in every age, and is denounced by the Word of God, and how it lies at the root of envy, and anger, and profanity, and every known sin. He drew attention to another thought lying on the surface of the text, i.e., that sowing and reaping invariably go hand in hand. All recognise their mutual depeudance, and intimate co-relation in carnal things, but we often fail to grasp their meaning in spiritual things. The farmer who sowed tares and expected to reap wheat would be considered a fit subject for a lunatic asylum, and yet how many farmers and others were there who sow ayariqe, and worldliness, and in» temperance, and Sabbath desecration and irreligion, and yet expect to get to heaven at last and reap a great reward there. Was it not an astonishing proposition for Paul to make to tell the Corinthians that the sowing broadcast of their money would bring them in a bountiful harvest ? Here the preacher spoke of the goodly harvest that had just been reappd and secured, afid the gratitude that should fill all hearts. Human wisdom says that, giving is the way to lessen pur store, bpt the Bible says it is the way to increase it, Many passages of spripture were quoted ih this. ‘ In dqr fiqain£is§ wa tttkVuUivr ti'dpp’ iii excfro&p action.,. ' «,tul raiment, for our money, such as *. - and look upon them as good as money. So God gives to His dutiful, generous, and obedient children in lien of their liberality a supply of all their needful wants, gratitude, peace, and happiness. Bo exhorted his hearers to sow beside all waters. The field, he said, is the world. The harvest itself is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Onethird of the human race is naked and homeless, one half is heathen, two thirds are dosituto of even a nominal Christianity. .Thousands of people in our great cities and continents are starving, while we are over-housed and over-fed, over-clothed, and sadly pampered by luxurious living. Wo can almost rival the days of ancient Romo, when suppers cost a fortune, and men like Nero tickled their throats with a feather to make way for new gluttony; or the days of Cleopatra, whoso drink was not palatable or except there had beeu dig-

solved in it some pearl of great price The money we spend in strong drink alone would rid the world of the hard pinches of poverty as clean as New Zealand is of snakes. The cost of a single shot from out of one of our big guns would maintain two missionaries in Japan. The United States of America, with ail her riches and all her philanthropy, only spends a farthing for the conversion and enlightenment of each of the heathen, and we in New Zealand, He supposed, don’t spend a thousandth part of that sum—that is, a thousandth part of a farthing. Is it any wonder that with so sparse a sowing there should be so sparse a harvest ? Wo at I ', called upon this day to sow bountfully among the houseless, homeless, furnitureless, poverty-striken, floodvisited people of Queensland, and He could only assure them in the language of Paul that if you sow bountfully you shall also reapbountiully. What a glorious bar vest of sympathy, and brotherly-love, and compassionate beneficence have already sprung up over the head of this calamity. In that evidence of the advancement of the world to the gospel consummation of Christian brotherhood, we have already been amply repaid for all our money. We seem isolated, but “One touch of nature makes all the world kin.” It may be that God is visiting these Queensland people with this appalling disaster on account of national sins. It may be that He is afflicting their chief city on account of the inhuman practices that are at least associated inseparably with the Kanaka Labor Trafflc, inaugurated and carried on by the Queensland Government and people. That wo can’t tell. “ Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish.” But we do know that there is great distress in Brisbane and the surrounding districts round about, that help is sorely needed, and that we, in company with all the restjof the Christian English-speaking world are called upon to give of our abundance. Let us give liberally, give cheerfully, and give present help, imitating the spirit of the poor coloured native of the West Indies who brought to a missionary the sum of £2 12s to help to spread the gospel he had received, and who when the missionary asked if that were not too much for his slender means replied : “ God’s work must be done massa and I may be dead.” Yes, God’s work must be done and we may be dead. And who knows but we shall meet many of the Queenslanders whom we helped at the last day before the great white throne when Christ shall say: “ I was an hungered and ye gave Me meat, 1 was thirsty and ye gave Me drink, I was a stranger and ye took Me in, naked and ye clothed Me,” and then, pointing to them, shall say “For inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me ; ” “ Come ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you before the foundation of the World.” There we shall need no demonstration of the great truth contained in our text, “He that soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly, and he that soweth bountifully shall reap bountifully.”