for the Sabbath

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14601, 26 February 1921, Page 10 (Supplement)

for the Sabbath

HE THAT OVERCOMETH. He that overcometh clearer light shall He that overcometh sweeter songs shall sing. He that overcometh higher peaks shall reach; He lhat overcometh, even he shall reap life's golden grain. He shall enter into rest and joy and peace, He that overcometh, strength and power shall receive Only good shall be his heritage In the world of victory and purity, Infinite perfeetness there shall crown the hero's brow. .-' In that victorious sphere, Whither sorrow, pain, and trial lead the way, Chastened souls shall (hid effulgent dayFind all peace and everlasting fruits Of holiness and happiness. Through the (ear-drops falling shine the plains of peace Through the portals of earth's plain there gleams the mount of glory; Through the silence of the sorrow sounds (he voice of praise. Richest harvests follow Springtime rains. ON QOINQ TO THE GOOD.

Mr A. Glutton Brock writes "On Going to the Good" in The New York Highway: "Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds'; and arts practised for the wrong reasons deserve what the Puritans say of them," he says. "The Puritans are irreligious because they do not see tha need of art and beauty; they spoil religion itself with their ugly hymns: and the life without art which they try to practise tends constantly to degeneration. The sons of the Puritans are apt to be neither Puritans nor artists; Hie fathers have eaten sour grapes and run after poison. The great, objection fo Puritanism is that it cannot last. There always follows a restoration wilh its orgies—silly, ugly and vicious. The Puritan is always fighting 'vice,' anil always being worsted because ho lights it, with the wrong weapons. H f . tries to prevent Hie young from going fo the bad. and fails because he does not show them how to go to the good. The good is beauty; and the best way tn protect the young from vice is to put them in love with beauty; to teach them beautiful dances when they are children, and lo set. them acting beautiful plays themselves. Then they will know the sacred innocence of beauty and have a standard of their own to protect them from ugliness and silliness, from the world and the flesh and the devil. The Puritan is afraid of all these; in his heart he believes that they are dangerously attractive; but if* he were religious and loved beauty, lie would know that. Hie world is silly, and the devil dull, and the flesh, without (he spirit, ugly. As for (he ministers who would tolerate (lie arls,. they had no answer to the Puritans and are even more wrong. The arts are not to-be tolerated; (hey are to he practised with passion or not at all. They do nof, come from the devil, or from some harmless negative source such as nature; they come from God."

GETTING TO THE MIDDLE OF IT. "Oh, how I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day" (Ps. cxix, 97). Andrew Bonar teds of a simple, Christian in a farmhouse who had "meditated the Bible, through three times.*' This is precisely what the Psalmist had done; he had gone past reading into meditation. Like Luther, lie had "shaken every tree in God's warden, and gathered fruit therefrom." The Idea of meditation is to "get into Hie middle of a thing." Meditation is lo the mind what digestion is to the body. Unless the food be digested the body receives no benefit from it. If wo would derive the fullest benefit from what we read or hear, there must be the mental digestion known as meditation. If we would "buy the truth" we must pay the price which Paul intimates when he wrote to Timothy, "Meditate upon these things;"give, thyself wholly to them." David meditated in God's word because he loved it, and he loved it the more because be meditated in it.

REVELATION OF GOD. The world, and its slowly evolving history, is a standing 1 revelation of Cod. The Eternal is ever fulfilling Himself, under the forms of lime, making fresh discoveries of Himself, translating His sublime thought into our human dialect, and becoming, as centuries move forward, more articulate and Intelligible. All life's solemn shifts of scenery, the great cosmic procession of events, from chaos onwa: - to the end of the experiment, the crash of departing kingdoms and outworn economics, are, in the religious interpretation of them, just the simmering and heaving of Cod's prodigious thought under the thin crust of things, the expression from age to age of His irrelevant intentions towards man.—.l. S. Jones.. THE "ORTHODOX" AROUSED. The old town of Liverpool (N.S.W.), which recently celebrated its centenary, has borne an enviable reputation for religious tolerance in all the churches, but. recently the advent of a gospel missioner, which field services in a large tent in the town, lias provoked the wrath of the "orthodox" Churches (says the Sydney Evening News). The missioner is credited wilh proselytising among the members of Ihe various churches, and conducting a house lo house campaign on behalf of the Seventh Hay Adventists. The missioner appears to be a very able speaker, with that gift of hypnosis lh.it renders the professional evangelist's efforts so temporarily successful in drawing crowds, and upsetting dogmas. A district campaign has unsettled the placid religious situation, and caused unrest among Hie Protestant bodies, who have been working so harmoniously up to the present time. The situation became so acute Unit a public meeting was held in tin"- Liverpool Town Hall reeentlv, :iL which the Church of England. Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Salvation Army seels inH to deal Willi the intruder. II was hoped llial 11,,. luuiian Catholic Church would also be represented, but the parish priesl did not ! attend. The Church of Eng land vicar presided, and ;i lively discussion ensued, ilurina which It dispel missioner. who was present, admitted Ihe sol'l impeacluncul of pri.selytisni, house to house visits, etc, .uid sialed thai, that was nothing lo what he intended doing. lie also criliciscd Ihe lloman Catholic Church, and it is ii'*w expected Unit thai body will launch its Ihundcrboll againsl Ihe misguided newcomer. Meanwhile, local friendships between lie- respective Saturday and Sunda> worshippers have been dissolved, and ?atan smiles in his saturnim s manner uhile professing Christian.-) bickc