The Sabbath

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17246, 5 November 1927, Page 18 (Supplement)

The Sabbath

GEMS OF POETRY.

THE BURIAL OF MOSES

By Ne-bo’S lonely mountain, On this side Jordan’s wave, In a vale in the land of Moab There lies a lonely grave; And no man knows that sepulchre, And no man saw it e’er, For the angels of God upturned the sod, And laid the dead man there.

And had he not high honour— The hillside for a pall, To lie in slate while angels wait, With stars for tapers tall, And the dark rock-pines, like tossing plumes, Over his bier to wave, And God’s own hand in that lonely land To lay him in the grave?

0 lonely grave in Moab’s land I 0 dark Beth-Peor’s hill! Speak to these curious hearts of ours, And teach them to be still. God hath his mysteries of grace, Ways that we cannot tell; lie hides them deep, like the hidden sleep Of him He loved so well. ' —C. P. Alexander. THE TEST OF EXPERIENCE, SO THAT IS IT. (Contributed). Religion, the link between Creator and created—surely to all an absorbing theme. What a relief in childhood to listen to one’s elder brothers talking geology, science, and evolution and Imbibing the wisdom of their conversation to conclude that there is no further need to be troubled with that Sunday story, but that one can run out, get into any mischief one likes and it will not matter. And so it goes on, and church goers are regarded with a quiet superiority. They must be ignorant, ill-read people to believe that story! Have they never heard of Darwin, Haeckel, sermons in stones, Higher Critics and crowds of other authorities? Then one day, an accident. A fall on a frozen flagstone and a queerlooking misshapen arm—an arm that has ceased to he an arm and has turned into something else. But what a curious feeling wells up in the heart of the sufferer! Pain is lost sight of, future discomfort and inconvenience is completely set aside and an intense surge of love, gratitude and appreciation —the very first, rises up spontaneously from the heart of the created towards the Creator and finds relief in that queer old fashioned way—prayer at the bedside, wordless but real. This is easily passed over but sUH

religion urges. The tie between Creator and created asserts itself, gives a slight tug perhaps.

Then comes Theosophy—enlightenment indeed, a positive blaze of light, and a source of superior satisfaction for years. Only a dream but how vivid!

Theosophy again, and manifestations seductive, most beautiful. And the leader —delightful! But a sudden realisation of deadly evil—of evil most urgently to be delivered from—to he pushed away. “If I can on: say the name 1 am delivered I”

nightmare struggle to speak, but ; last the name is triumphantly shoul.e< and the Adversary, with a dark 100. withdraws before its Glory. Not enough—a further trial, and tl most severe, but leaving absolute con viction. With darkness, lonelines. care and discomfort round about, n human being within reach, everythin; strange and not to be seen, and feu ready to creep out —a sudden Reality The Name I will not write. All the most lovely names contained within it, and infinite room to spare—The Word, The Redeemer the True Light, the Good Shc'pherd, Rock of Ages, LQver of My Soul I Loving, tender, utterly righteous, endlessly cheerful, really bucking one up, familiar before one’s good mother’s face, holding within the Radiance of His Name all our little lives, despite our coldness, our unworthiness, our comicality. And only the prosy comment: “So That Is it!’’

How could one be clean enough to be even the least of His servants? Where the loneliness, the care, the fear now? Bruised, battered, muddy with repeated troubles, drenched with the rain, stiff and stiffly pushing one foot before the other, a song on the lips, and in the mind calm and a big thought. And a snug, homely feeling in slipping into the pew in the stuffy little church. Never mind Sts stuffiness, though you are a fresh-air fiend. At one time people were glad to go into tombs, catacombs, to hear this Wondrous Story. And the preacher, a lay reader, selecting wisely, and deserving our best thanks and appreciation, but necessarily circumscribed. My friend, no sermon ever preached by our Archbishop is to be compared with “Come unto Mo,” and “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” Dear Scientist, dear Evolutionist-, or whatever your name may he, I honour your honest, able zealous search, and am sure it will be rewarded. You tell to wiser beads than mine facts, deductions, things which may he here to-day and gone to-morrow. But what I knew in a wonderful, most natural moment, and know, is Truth, Truth adequate, Truth in which' there is no further question to he asked, and all 1 said was: So That Is It! ,