UNREPEATED DAYS

Waikato Times, Volume 98, Issue 16174, 27 December 1924, Page 12 (Supplement)

UNREPEATED DAYS

THE END OF THE YEAR,. We must do the work of God while it is day. When the day is over it is not repeated. “The night cornel* when no man can work.” Another day may come, but that day, with its calls and its choices, is ended for ever. This tremendous commonplace, which prophets and seers have sounded with all their splendour of imagery, is on the lips of Our Lord Himself. Once and once only do the choices of life come to men. Eaoh day has its distinctive tasks, and when the night falls they have been done or left undone; they are'not offered again. What we have written we have written. It is by the attitude of men to such ancient and r olemn homilies that they take their place in the earthly scene. Only the foolish make their plans as though they could recover the ground lost in other days by working overtime. That cannot be done in the business of life.

This might once have been, once only; And we missed it—lost it for ever. All that is true of the day is true of the group of days which we call the year, and it may be that the burden of every nightfall, which bids us remember the passing of another range of opportunity, will be enforced by the end of a year. They who forget the days may be startled by the years. The calendar may waken some who will sleep through the counsels of prophets and evangelists. "The year is dying in the night," dying never to rise again; and with it die's the distinctive choice which came during its hours.

It seems indeed as though Our Lord deemed the day the better measure to use. He bade men think in days. "Give us this day our daily bread. .■ . . Be not over-anxious for the morrow. . . . We must work

while it is day, for the night cometh." Man needs more frequent reminders than the close of a year can give. The race can be best run one day at a time. Let each set of sun rehearse the solemn law of a realm, where time has s 1711 its office, that man must live urgently and punctually in the living present. He must be faithful in time if lie is to be faithful in eternity. It is wiser to have a shorter measure that the year. But years, too, have their distinctive occasions, and they, too, are not repeated. Isaiah remembered one year because of the vision which it brought him. "In the year that King Uzziali died I saw the Lord." The vision belonged to the year; at no other time could the situation have been reproduced again. Many converging movements led to the crisis in the soul of the prophet. In that year he saw, and obeyed, the heavenly vision. Other visions and olher calls might have come to him, but not that vision. It belonged to one period in time. The conjunction of public events and of spiritual movements within tfic heart of the prophet and of others came once, and was not repealed.

It is when the occasion Is analysed and is shown to be itself the meetingplace of many movements that we understand how necessary it is to Stfize it when it comes. The occasion is itself a moment in a long process; much has led up to it; much will flow from it. But the process cannot he arrested, if wo are late or slothful. There is in the life of Our Lord a clear evidence that Ho waited for the signal, eager to keep the appointed hour. When it 6amo He was not found sleeping. The lime came for Him to be received up; He set His face toward Jerusalem, and when His disciples saw glimpses of that faco they were afraid. There was the look of intense absorption. The hour was near; and He must not be late.

Through such an emergency alone will man, as he lives in the flesh, win for himself the gains for which life was given to him. By this alchemy of watchful purpose clock-time becomes transformed into the stuff of eternal life.

The year 1924 provided for men certain opportunities which will not be repeated. But there is no call for remorse. This is not a Christian virtue; it is a waste of emotion; it spells paralysis of energy; it is not akin to repentance, but almost its opposite. The man who looks back In this fashion is not fit for the Kingdom of

Heaven. The memory of the past year can warn the soul to be diligent and watchful —that Is all. It is not in vain if into the new year the soul carry the purpose to make life—

in strictest measure even To that same lot, however mean or high, Towards which Time leads me and the will to Heaven.

The Christian Faith,sets before men the task of living at once in time and in eternity. The life which a man lives now in the flesh he must live by the faith which gives him a hold upon eternal life, it is a life at once of striving and of fruition. He is dying, and, behold, he lives,! The close of the year, if it calls him to retrospect, shows him how imperfectly he has fulfilled his calling, how deeply he has been immersed in time, and how little he has enjoyed the powers of the eternal life. But if he has failed he is not relieved of his task. He is still called to turn the occasion of this life in lime into the material of eternity. Through the things seen, which arc temporal, he must win his way to the things unseen, which arc eternal. There is no escape from this calling. In 1925 the former occasions will not return; but in whatever new settings the soul finds itself it has still to amass the undying gains which can be found in a dying world. The events themselves are nothing; the courage, the faith,' the sacrifice of self, the spirit of love which they have called f or th —these are the things of value. And something of them can still be his who enters the year with the humility, iearned from failure, and the high courage which becomes the faithful. The year 1925 may be recorded in the history of such a man as the year in which he had to wrestle with the mystery of death, or the year in which in some new fashion he saw the Lord of Hosts. It may be the ydar of crisis for which the other years have paved the way. The occasion is unknown, but the spirit in which it can be met is not unknown. The soul must watch lest that hour find him sleeping. It must let each call to face peril or loss, or to enjoy ease, or to give service to the great causes be welcomed and obeyed. He is stationed in time, himself the outpost of eternal life. He is bound by the limitations of earth, though he is a freeman of the City of God. Ho must go warily and yet joyfully, thankful that he is able, through faith, to lay up treasures where neither moth nor rUst can corrupt and thieves do not break and steal.

A MESSAGE FOR THE MEW YEAR. At many of the railway crossings in America a conspicuous notice in three words arrests attention —“Stop! Look! Listen!”—not altogether inappropriate to the present season. “Stop!”—How great is the value of the pause in life! Amid the rush and strenuousness of these days such pauses are rare indeed. Let us take the opportunity to stand still and give a place to great thoughts, to remember the truths by which we live. “Look!” Take in the whole situation, its duties, its perils, its needs. How often are we practically blind to transcendent claims and interests! <f“Listenl” The still, small voices which are of first consequence are drowned in the vulgar noises of the world, and we heed not the solemn calls of a higher world, the warning voices of the Spirit. Beginning a new year specially calls for introspection, reflection, resolution. Before we reenter into the distractions of life let us estimate our bearings, look above and beyond, and hear what God the Lord will speak. Let us begin and deal with the sin that besets us at this very hour. Beginning a new year with desires and resolution for general improvement is good, but such aspirations will be best carried out by dealing at once with definite obvious faults which just now trouble us. Lately I have detected in myself a tendency to depreciation. Let me leave it with the dying year and begin at once to foster the spirit of charity and magnanimity. Or, I have caught myself indulging a temper of melancholy and discontent. Let me at once banish it by calling up visions of the mercies and promises of the Lord. Or, I am conscious of a deciino in devotion, spirituality, holiness, sacrifice. Let me not tarnish the new days by perpetuating any of these special faults of which the good Spirit has made me conscious. Do not yield to the temptation that your future must be pretty much what your past has been—the Redeeming Creator waits to make all things new. —llev. W, L. Watkinson.

A MILITANT FAITH.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK ON FACING CRITICISM. The need of a militant programme of Christian endavour iit\ the present circumstances of organised antl-Chrlsti-anty formed the subject of an address by the Archbishop of York, who presided at tho annual meeting of the Christian Evidence Sbclcly. The Archbishop said that he had broken ids usual rule of not speaking at London meetings of the society only because of the unusual situation, .lust as it was improbable that more than a tenth of the electorate were fully informed upon political matters, so it was unlikely, he considered, that any greater proportion of people professing the Christian faith were at home with the essence of their religion. Yet democracy and Christianity were both essential to the existence of our race. There had never been greater interest in religion than at present. Belter education, the growth of science, and, above all, the late war, had all played their part in stimulating impilry, and thousands who had never thought of these things before were now earnestly examining the credentials of every form of religion. They should concentrate on three main points. First, they should take cure to exhibit the Christian faith us it really Is. Tim umiiiostloning acceptance of Its views by many people resulted In their being easily shaken by intelligent criticism, after which, doubt and misconceptions followed. The next urgent need was to deal with the Christian faith In Iho light of recent knowledge, for the understanding of which i.lie study of comparative religion was necessary. The time woijld soon come when there would arise a battle between Hie two conceptions of Christianity as a form of suggestion and as a divine revolution, and it was necessary to clear the air for that struggle. Mental alertness was not enough—there must also ho mental training. Finally, and above all, they must concentrate against the onslaughts which come from intelligent men who, desiring a redressal of the many wrongs and Injustices existing under the present social system, attacked Christianity as l.lio author of a hllml content which made these evils pern silde. “Unless Urn message of Christianity gets home to the minds of the workers,” said the Archbishop, "there is no hope for us.”

in conclusion, the Archbishop paid tribute to 1.1)0 work of the society, which, he said, by Its work of Information In public places and else/where was performing a signal service In Ihe dissemination of true Christianity, a faith Which was above all a missionary faith, sorely needed by Hie world.