On the Threshold of Sunday

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18557, 12 August 1922, Page 2

On the Threshold of Sunday

(Contributed by the Wanganui < Ministers’ Association.) 1 , 1 THE BIBLE ABIDES. ATTRACTS. c CONQUERS. f (By Dr. John Clifford). c The Bible is indestructable. It can- < not be holden of death. Buried a | thousand times beneath the accumu- j la ted heaps of hostile criticism, it rises 1 again to newness of life. It is absolute- ( ly insuppressible. The continuity of < the Bible as a spiritual and ethical force c in the life of the world is one of the J outstanding marvels of history. Recall i its story. Reckon up the number the strength, the malignity of the open and | avowed enemies it has encountered, whose extinction it has survived. Look * the character and power of theL schools of criticism, and note the way j in which they have come and gone, < whilst it has kept on fcrever. Each f had found the mystic key for its ex- f planation. Each knew more than its predecessor. Each had the newest fact ; to supply, and each did its critical < work; some rendering real service, < others none. But the Bible abides, at- i tracts, conquers. Add to this the i greatest wonder of all—that it has lived through the inconceivably foolish and misguided behaviour of its friends. 1 No book was ever more unwisely loved, ' no book ever suffered more from itsi adI inirers. The crude interpretations of I its message, the wild' theories preached in its name and backed by preversions of its texts, the absence of sense and method in the exposition of its statements, the preposterous schemes and movements undertaken for its defence, convince us that if the Book had not an absolutely indestructable centre it would have disappeared long ago. But God lives, and. is its life, therefore it endures, and shall endure for evermore. NINE REASONS FOR GOING TO CHURCH. I. —ln this actual world, a churchless community, a community where men have abandoned and scoffed at or ignored their religious needs, is a community on the rapid down grade. 11. —Church work and church attendance mean the cultivation of the habit of feeling some responsibility for others. 111. —There are enough holidays for most of us. Sundays differ from other holidays in the fact that there are fiftytwo of them every year —therefore, on Sundays, go to church. IV. Yes, I know all the excuses. I know that one can worship the Creator in a grove of trees or by a running brook, or in a man's own house just as well as in a church. But 1 also know as a matter of cold fact that the average man does nob thus worship. V. —Ho may r-.ot hear a good sermon at church. He will hear a sermon by a good man who, with his good wife, is engaged all the -.eek in making hard lives a little easier. VI. —He will listen to and take part in reading some beautiful passages from the Bible. And if he isr not familiar with the Bible, he has suffered a lose. VII. —He will take part in singing some good hymns. VIII. —He will meet and nod or speak to good, quiet neighbours. He w ill come away feeling a little more charitably toward all the world, even toward those excessively foolish young men who regard church-going as a soft performance. IX. —I advocate a man’s joining in church work for the sake of showing his faith by his work. —Theodore Roosevelt. GIVING OCR. BEST. ‘‘The greatest examples of sacrifice •and of giving are not found to-day in the homeland*. ” he Christian Church in Europe and America, with all the multitude of its guts, has fallen behind the heathen. We are not sacrificing to our God as the heathen have been taught to sacrifice to their gods. ‘‘There comes to my mind the story of a missionary in India who, one morning. started out on his itinerary to visit) the native villages. He passed, by a | point near the Ganges river, where mothers were accustomed to come, leading their children by _ the hands, to ' sacrifice them in the river; and he saw ■ standing there, with tears streaming) down her face, a Hindu mother. By each j hand she held a little one. AV ell knowing what her purpose wa.s, he began to ( plead -with her and to intercede for the i iife of the children. But she shook her head sadly to all his pleadings. Then; he noticed that, one of the children was j well favoured with a perfect body in , every way, while the other was lame. ! blind, emaciated, and looked as if l could scarcely live. With, a sad heart, his pleas rejected, he went on his way i to preach the Gospel in the villages. Coming back by the same path later in the day, he saw again the same mother, but now she had only one child by the hand; the other child was gone. This time she was weeping even more sadly than in the morning, and ho went up to her and said, ‘Did you do it?’ ‘Oh. yea,’ she answered, ‘I gave him to my god.’ “Well,” said he, as he looked at the little child, and saw that the one who was left was the lame, weak, blind, and emaciated child, ‘why, in God’s name, did you not give this one?’ ‘Oh. 1 white man,’ she said, ‘I do not know what your American God expects of you, but I know that our God expects the best.’ “Friend’s, I believe that our God. the God of the whole universe, expects the best; and I believe that he will never get the lull blessing that comes to those who bring all the tithes into the storehouse until we give of our best.” —(Contributed.) THE SCOTTISH REVIVAL IS SWEEPING ON. The interest of the nation is focussed J upon it. That Divine Power is at work ' is evident. We cull one charming lit- ' tie incident. Oh* that in our churches the same holy fire might burn! In on* home a. little girl -a delicate wee lassie —and her granny were the only two attending the .meetings. One Sunday

morning the granny was ill, and there was po one to take the- child to church. Her father was in bed, recovering from a drinking bout; the mother a brokenhearted woman, had neither the heart nor the garments tc go. The little girl sat and sobbed, and. to everyone’s amazement, the father said, half jestingly, “Dinna greet, I’ll come wi’ ye.” Seeing the child believed he meant it, he had not the heart to go back on his word. He went to church, and it must have needed a great amount of moral courage, for he had not been in church for a dozen years. He found the congregation sympathetic; old friends spake kindly to him; he enjoyed the service, and came back at night. The evening service touched him still more; he stayed to the alter meeting ; he is now a saved soul. He had a stiff fight, for he had gone a long way into the far country, and it r.ook him the best part of a week to find the way. But he has got it, and is showing his wife the way now.