ANGELS OF VISION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 108, 9 May 1931, Page 13 (Supplement)

ANGELS OF VISION

I FORBEARANCE AND CHARITY (H.G.G.) Are wc sufficiently aware how far our attitude towards life’s problems and pursuits is relative! Do we realise to what degree our point of view is circumscribed, or expanded, by our early’ training and our varied experiences on life’s way? Before and After the Desert. These questions were raised in my mind while reading the journal of a pilgrim to Palestine. He and his party were brought up to the idea of that country as “flowing with milk and honey.” They arrived in the Holy Land, however, with memories of the Riviera and Sicily in their minds, and in comparison the country was dour and grim. But afterwards they went down by camel caravan into the Sinaitic Peninsula and spent two weeks in “that great and terrible wilderness,” where for years the nomad sons of Israel had battled lor a precarious existence. They became so accustomed to the wilderness that for days after they 7 came out their closed eyes saw sterile, hot granite crags, plains of sand and gravel radiating heat, and in the torrid landscape hunted for some forlorn half withered palm tree that might prom’, c shade. Overnight by train they passed from that blistering, arid desert back into Palestine and found themselves in the morning climbing up from the Philistine plain through the foothills into Judea. They knew’ then why the Hebrews thought this new country they were conquering a paradise. To their eyes also it looked green and beautiful so that they could not easily imagine any thing more lovely. Travelling onward they saw' the overflowing fountains, the fertile valleys, the abundant, olive groves of Ephraim, with ripe grain fields and freshly ploughed ground ly ing side by side, fulfilling the prophets’ picture of fertility, “the ploughman shall overtake the reaper.” They understood what the eighth chapter of Deuteronomy meant: ‘‘A good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley: and vines and fig-trees anil pomegranates; a land of olive trees and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it.” They were seeing Palestine with eyes accustomed to the desert. Their conviction was that one must so see it to understand what the Bible says about it. Youth and Maturity. This principle of relativity in regard to our point of view was further emphasised by two extracts from the diary of William Blake. The first was written in boyhood: “I cannot protend to like this school, however much 1 try. The head is a beast, and not one of the masters is a decent chap. I hate being kept in after hours when the other fellows are going out to games, yet, whenever I haven’t done a lesson right they make mo do it until I know it thoroughly. This is constantly the case with my Latin. Also I loathe the food they give us; we have to eat fat and loan together, and fat is beastly. Also, however cobl it is, wc have to take loug runs when it would be mii'.l; nicer to sit by the lire ami be comfort al le. Also I can’t understand my father and mother, who say they love me that all that, sending me to such a piace.” .Jr.st fifty years later, when ho was world-famed as painter and poet, Blake ivrotc: “Of my many advantages in ear’y life, I place easily first, my parents, whose particular method of training inc was beyond all praise . . . In lin king back on my first school, I can think of it only with affection, for the maimer in which the masters treated my inert tendencies of character was entindy admirable. To their insistence at that period I owe one of the keenest delights of my maturer years, a Jove for the Latin authors . . . .In the matter of physical soundness, also, I am eer tainly much indebted to the school runs, which were compulsory, and to the wholesome and sensible diet on which 'wc were fed, without which I should not possess to-day the virility which has kept mi* free from disease to a quite unusual extent.” “That Sight.” No two persons view any fact of life from the same angle; no one person, unless he stagnates, retains the same point of view in the varying experiences and stages of his development, ’rhe realisation of the principle of relativity in regard to life’s problems and pursuits should beget in us the grace of forbearance and charity. This should be nowhere more in evidence than in our views of “That sight,” as the New ’l’estnment poignantly describes the Crucifixion. How varied arc the aspects of the doctrine spoken ot the “saving Efficacy of the Death of Christ.” Most ministers find that the great majority of the young people received into Church membership have never experienced such a crisis as “conversion.” Brought up in a Christian home and atmosphere, they have always believed in and loved * Jesus Christ as their Saviour. For them the Crpss projects an ideal and thev speak glowingly of Christ as the Captain of their .Salvation. Others conn* under deep conviction of sin and find the Cross whispers a message of Forgive ness. Some, finding themselves in the grip of evil habits ami despairing- of eve r overcoming their evil courses? rejoice as the Cross for them disengages a Moral Dynamic. Still others discover the way of salvation as “That si<dit” brings them down from false heights of Nidl-suflieieney to humility and dependence. Think, again, of the various terms people love to use in speaking of <he SiMonrhood of Jesus Christ. One man has been, in his view, held captive bv sin and enslaved of the do\ il. Accord ing to him, the Saviour came down into lhe slave market ami paid the price for I l-is redemption. Thus he speaks of the • denlh of ( hrist as his “Ransom.’ Another, more particularly in a forme) . generation, having felt himself under the wrath aiid curse ot’ (tod, speaks of the “expiation.” For him Christ on ! the Cross paid the penalty of his sin. Ij For multitudes Christ, did something ,'thcy wore unable to do themselves and J they speak of’ his dying as their “Substitute.” With solemn and humble. I

yet exultant, faith they love to w rite - on His Cross. “Ho died for me.” Ami ; some, having felt, the filthiness of sin | and the defilement of their lives, use with sacred joy lhe refrain: “Washed in the Blood of the Lamb.”; There is a touching incident told of the exhibition of a painting of the Crucified. With the room in darkness the picture was illumined from below. The face was not marred or strained bv suffering ami the eyes were wide open, radiating a look of intense, pitying lo\ e. /\ man stood in front of the | crowd ami, lost, in adoring worship, whispered, “Bless Him. 1 lo'e Him.’’! Another and another caught up lhe words, and said. ‘ ‘ I love Him too. ’’ We all look at the Christ from different angles, often our own point of viewchanges, but we look at the Oneji Saviour. Looking, we love.