THINGS THOUGHTFUL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16919, 19 December 1922, Page 3

THINGS THOUGHTFUL.

Oh I would lie free To work for others ; Lorre so earned of them | Should he my wages and my diadem. —Jean. Tngelow. IMMORTALITY. immortality is something far more than, and something different from, ! mere- survival through unending time. ; l am sure I need not warn my hearers | against the pitiable revival of necromancy, in which many desolate and bleeding hearts have sought- a spurious | satisfaction. If that kind of after- , life .is true it will indeed lie a melani cholv postponement or negation of . all j that we hope and believe about our blessed dead.. Belief in immortality firmly held must needs transform everything for us in this world. - -Very Rev Dean Inge. PIN hTWOOIXS. This is God’s Holy Place —these quiet aisles A vast- cathedral, fashioned for God’s praise Through the slow-moving hours of untold days, When grew to strength its clustering campaniles. God was its builder, secret and unheard, Who reared each dusky arch and archiAbove its many-pillared glooms and gave ! His Book of Hours to winds and singing bird. And here God dwells, yet dwells He all unseen; Though men. may hear His rustling vestures trail Among the pine-tops, and at whiles may glean A vision brief and blinding as the grail. When sun and wind a myriad censers spill. And all the woods with subtle incense fill.Rev M. Key worth. THE MISER. The word “miser” is plainly visible in ,the word “miserable.” It is, indeed, more than a pun to say that a miser 1 -in misery. To hoard up money lot a whole lifetime and put it in a wall or under the floor is to spend a lile in want. A miser like that lives m want of the joy that comes when the heart is warmed hy the act ot giving. A great man exclaimed. “Oh, the joy'of believing that one receives more from j others than one gives! Successful men are those who remember what other men forget. A hog ought not to he blamed for lining a hog, but a man ought> A good man is a living light-foun-tain. which it is good and pleasant to be near. Celebrity is but candle-light--it shows what a man is, but cannot make him better or worse than other men. SISTERS.

The brier that o’er the garden wall Trails its .sweet blossoms till they fall l*pou the dusty road, and then Are trodden under feet of men, Js sister to the decorous rose Within the garden’s well-kept close Whose pinioned branches may not roam Out and beyond their latticed home. There’s many a life of sweet, content Whose virtue is environment. | A fire that gives out no hoot is love I that never manifests itself. FELICITY. ! Felicity must he distinguished front ] Prosperity. Prosperity is seldom a , spiritual tonic , it leads to ambition, j and ambition leads to disappointment, j The wheel of Fortune turns but once, j and then the course is over. When a I man rises from Life's Feast it. can make jno difference to him whether he lias j enjoyed his banquet or no; but it i must be a matter of supreme importance whether he has sown some fertile ; seeds to bring forth food for mankind in successive tilths and ever-widening ill arrests. Luther said he ■would not purchase Paradise at the price of another forty years of life! But after all life is short, and Heaven is for ever.