The Sabbath

Waikato Times, Volume 111, Issue 18642, 21 May 1932, Page 14 (Supplement)

The Sabbath

THREE LAMPS.

0 little lamp of Faith, your beam Is white and dear At morning.—But have you the power To light us in our darkest hour? To pierce the pallid mists that gleam So very near?

0 little lamp of Hope, you burn So strong and bright At morning.—Have you strength to guide Us safely, when the ebbing tide Draws us away? When shadows turn Day into night?

0 little lamp of Love, you glow Like shining gold At morning—Yes, but will your light Still shine for us when it is night? When at your feet deep waters how And winds are cold?

Both Faith and Hope may lose their power, Their lamps burn low; But Love —0 anxious hearts—will send ■Her lamp to guide us to the end, Its light divine —in our dark hour— Will stronger grow! . ‘ i—Alice Lea.

MESSAQE OF CHEER. CHURCH IS NOT DEAD. A message of cheer and courage was conveyed to the congregation of St. James’ Presbyterian Church, Newtown, Wellington, by the Moderator, Rev. A. A. Armstrong. Mr Armstrong was speaking at a reunion social, part of a week’s programme to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the church. The speaker issued a strong challenge to the spirit and suggestions of pessimism so often met with in relation to critics of the Church to-day. Mr Armstrong said lie would like the faot to be broadcast that the Church was not a failure. Some people were always asking, “What's wrong with the Church?” They should often rather bo asking, ‘‘What’s wrong with myself? ’ They said that the Church’s day was over, and they pointed to the vast numbers who never went to church. They did not know that there probably was never a day Jn Wellington’s history when more people of free will and choice attended publlo worship than to-day. “The Presbyterian congregations are larger, more sincere, and more practical in their Christian living and outlook than at any other period in their history,” Mr Armstrong said. ‘‘The presbytery has grown greatly duiing the last fifty years, and especially during the last decade. It seems that people somehow have a faculty for glorifying the past to the detriment of the present. I think that these aie the best days that have ever been, and the more you read history the more one realises It. “There was always terrible evil in the world. Before our day it used to he cloaked and hidden and It lurked everywhere. Dirt, drunkenness, defilement made the earth reek with a social rottenness beyond our imagination to-day. Against it all, the Church lias maintained her steady and solid witness. The world, despite present problems, is a belter and brighter place, than it used to be. “I do not think we need lo fear for the Church of Christ in these days. Ail that we have to fear is that wo will not have the courage and capacity to ohev Christ in these days of new opportunity to win the world for Him. I believe that God is doing great tilings for us these days, if only we have eyes to see how the true reconstruction is proceeding.

“There were difficulties and dangers and plenty of things In life to depress us," Mr Armstrong added. "But there was also God, and He was always with us, and always most sulUcient, and again and again intervening in our lives, and making a way for us to escape. Don’t let us make too much of the difllcultes and the shadows,” he said, “and forget that God standeth ‘keeping watch above His own,’ as Whittier says. The New Testament gives us the right view, and therefore it appeals to us to-day as never before in history.”

DAN CRAWFORD’S APHORISMS. A few of Dan Crawford’s aphorisms are quoted-in Dr. Tilsley's biography of the missionary pioneer:— Y r ou can see a million miles through a 'hole in the wall. God is president of the Anti-Snob Society. There is no high hill without a valley beside it. There is no crown without a cross. You can count the apples on a tree, 'but you cannot count the trees in an apple. The snob is the man who, on the ladder of life, kisses the feet of the man ahead, and kicks the head of the man behind. The soul of improvement Is the improvement of the soul. There is no birth without a pang. No man ever saw his own face.

What does it profit a man If he gain the whole world and lose his smile?

What good is a looking glass to a blind man?

THE PRIMAL CAUS2. The more science knows, the more science is compelled to recognise that tlie things that we see were not made of the things that do appear, that the only explanation of matter and of life is. a God. “Hallies Wisscn fulirt von Gobb ah, grundliches Wisscn fulirt ztt Golt bin,” “Half knowhlge leads away from God, full and deep knowledge leads to him." Biologists may make a last effort to escape from the logical conclusion— God —by using such neutral terms as “determinants" and “teleology,” but there is no escape. The hound of heaven is steadily and tirelessly racking them down. Study does not simplify cellular phenomena; it shows them more inexplicable, and more and more the functions of life are seen to involve environmental preparations and reciprocities and correspondences that oannot be explained by chance and that can be explained only by intelligent prescience or providence.—Ronald Macfie, M.A., LL.D., in “Science Rediscovers God."