THE SABBATH.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20248, 17 July 1937, Page 20 (Supplement)

THE SABBATH.

“BE NOT ANXIOUS.” 'Be not anxious for to-day, Light will shine about thy way. As thy day thy strength shall be, Eventide be light for thee. Lilies do not toll, and yet There Is a glory for them set. Be not anxious for to-morrow, Go not out to meet thy sorrow. Hast thou seen at eventide The dark cloud in light abide, That all day did frown and lower? So shall be thy morrow’s hour. Be not anxious for thine own, Light and joy for them are sown. They with thee are in His care. Shall he feed the birds In air, Watch the sparrows fall and mount, And yet take for thee no count? Be not anxious. God is love. See, the skies are blue above; Lift thine eyes where He doth dwell, Bid thy heart say, ' It is well.” Put thy cares, thy grief away, “ Be not anxious,” hear Him say. —Frank Ellis. DAILY TEXT. Sunday. What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?—Mark 10: 57. Whatsoever seemeth good unto . . Thou art my God; My times are in Thy hand.—Judges 10; 15. Psalm 31, 14-15. Fear not for I am with thee and will bless thee ... I will bless thee and thou shalt be a blessing.—Genesis 26: 24, 12; 2. Monday. For what dost thou make request?— Nehemiah 2:4. 0, Thou, my God, save Thy servants that trusteth in Thee . . and bless me . . . and keep me as the apple of the eye; hide me under the Shadow of Thy wings';—Psalm 86: 2. Genesis 27: 24. Psalm 17:8. I am not with thee, saith the Lord to save thee . . . and I will bless thee. —Jeremiah 30: 11. Genesis 12: 2. Number 6: 24. Tuesday. What is thy petition? and it shall be granted thee, and what is thy request?—Esther 5: 6. Oh that Thou wouldest bless me and that Thy hand might be with me and that wouldest keep me from evil that it may not grieve me—l. Chronicles 4: 12. I, the Lord, have called thee in righteousness and will hold thy hand and will keep the.—lsaiah 42: 6. Wednesday. What is thy petition? and it shall be granted thee; or what is thy request further? and it shall be done? —Esther 9: 12. The good God, pardon everyone that prepareth his heart and seek God.—ll. Chronicles 30: 18-19. Lord, Thou hast heard the desire of the humble: Thou will prepare their heart . . . the preparations of the heart in man are from Thee.— P9alm 10: 17. Proverbs 16: 1. Thursday. Why callest thou Me Good?—Luke 18: 19. Thou, Lord, art good and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy upon all them that call upon Thee ... to all that oall upon Thee in truth.— Psalms 86: 5, 145: 18. Give ear unto my prayer that goeth not out of feigned lips.—Psalm 17: 1, Friday. Whom shall I serve? —11. Samuel 16: 19. Know thou the God of thy father and serve Him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind . . . for the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to serve Him.—l. Chronicles 28: 9. 11. Chronicles 29: 11. His servants shall serve Him, and they shall see His face . . . and if they obey and serve Him they shall spend their days in prosperity and their years in pleasures . . . for the Lord hath pleasure in the prosperity of His servants.—Revelations 22: 3-4. Job 36: 11. Psalm 35: 27. Saturday. What shall I ask?—Mark 6: 24. Mercies of the God of Heaven . . . the Father of Mercies, and the God of all comfort.—Daniel 2: 18. 11. Corinthians 1: 3. 0, Lord, let Thy tender mercies come upon me . . . and let, I pray Thee, Thy merciful kindness be for my comfort. —Psalm 119: 76-77. PRAYER. Prayer is not only—perhaps in some of the holiest souls is not even chiefly—a petition for something that we want and do not possess. In the larger sense of the word, as the spiritual language of the soul, prayer is intercourse with God, often seeking no end beyond the pleasure of such intercourse. It is praise .. . When we seek the company of our friends ... it is a pleasure to be with them, to be talking to them at all about anything; to be in possession of their sympathies and to be showing our delight at it; to bo assuring them of their place in our hearts and thoughts. So it is with the soul, when dealing with the Friend of friends—with God. —Canon Liddon. A DIVINE IDEA. All truly consecrated men learn little by little that what they are consecrated to is not only Joy or sorrow, but a divine idea and a profound obedience, which can And their full outward expression not in joy, and not in sorrow, but In the mysterious and inseparable mingling of the two . . . Under a cloud of circumstances we must walk; but there is behind it that law and that truth which really made the life of Jesus—the law of j obedience and the truth of sonship—then for us, 100, light shall come through the •cloud, and mingling with the darkness, make that new condition in which it is best for a man's soul to live, that sweet and strong condition in which joy and sorrow may have place, but which is greater j than either of them —the condition 1 which He called peace. LOOK UP. To watch one's soul all the time, seeking for moral disease, is as bad us to watch one's body all the time seeking for physical disease. Do not look within to see whether your feelings are right; but look without to see what you are doing for others; per and spirits are to those about you. Look up. also for higher light and more life. —J. F. Clarke.

THE COMMUNION OF BAINTB. We are apt to feel as If nothing we could do on earth bears a relation to what the good are uolng in a higher world; but it is not so. Heaven and earth are not so far apart. Every disinterested act, every sacrifice to duty, every exertion for the good of “ one of the least of Christ’s brethren,” every new insight into God’s works, every new impulse given to the love of truth and goodness, associates us with the departed, brings us nearer to them, and is as truly heavenly as if we were acting, not on earth, but in Heaven. The spiritual tie between us and the departed is not felt as it should be. Our union with them daily grows stronger, if we daily make progress in what they are growing in.”—Channing. REGRET. When you are examining yourself, never call yourself a 44 sinner,” that is very cheap abuse and utterly useless. Call yourself a liar, a coward, a sluggard, a glutton, etc., if you indeed find yourself to be in any wise any of these. Take steady means to check yourself in whatever fault you have ascertained and accused yourself of. And as soon as you are in active way of mending, you will be no more inclined to moan over an undefined corruption. For the rest, you will find it less easy to uproot faults than to choke them by gaining virtues. Do not think of your faults, still less of other people’s faults; in every person who comes near you, look for what is good and strong; honour that; rejoice in it; and as you can, try to imitate it; and your faults will drop off like dead leaves when their time comes.— Ruskin. THE COMBINED FACULTIES. Everyone must admire the courage which she displayed, but those who know by experience what the lowest of the masses in our large towns are like—how all decency and every vestige of humanity seems to be stamped out of their nature—will alone be in a condition to appreciate her power. That power should more properly be called the utmost cultivation of all her faculties. This enabled her first to see the image of God, defiled and darkened though it might be, impressed upon every living soul—to feel her kinship with it, to lay her hand, not upon the defilements and impurity, but through the means of her infinite love and tenderness, upon the one spot yet capable of being healed, thus kindling the faintest spark into a living flame.—From 44 Biography of Sister Dora.” DOUBTB. I think that to assure everyone, and especially those we most love, that He is love, and that they are simply to respose in that thought without troubling themselves about their belief or realisation of it, or anything else, is our great business. God is seeking us, and not we Him; and it is an infinite comfort to know this when we are fevered and restless with the thought of our own impotent struggles and great laziness. 44 In quietness and confidence ” is our 44 strength,” but not in thinking of quietness and confidence, or grieving that we have so little of either, but in simply assuring ourselves of the ground that we have to believe that God is our friend now and ever, and that He can be nothing else, and that the forgetfulness of this and nothing else has been our sin and shame.—F. D. Maurice. the gauntlet. If you like to apply the name of Evil to all such minor plagues of life as a headaohe, or the loss of a pleasure, or tlie unkindness of h friend, nobody will contradict yotf; but I venture to advise you to keep this word for great occasions. Do not be put off with Shakespeare’s phrase about a soul of goodness in things ' evil; keep the word for that soul of badness, outside things good, which we recognise In experience, but find utterly unintelligible. The wonder of evil, if you limit yourself to wondering, leads you to the grave where Faith and Hope and Charity are buried side by side, without so much as a head-stone over them; it is that way madness lies. Evil has one thing, and no more, to say to us: Will you fight? Oh, the ugly bully, so much bigger and stronger than we are, the great beast. In the name of God, off with your coat, and up with your fists. Of course, he will beat you, the brute. Still, you may get home on him once or twice. You may? No, you will. Then wash the blood off your face and give thanks to Heaven as best you can; and fight him again. See, even the wonder of evil is not so mad as it looks. From the beginning of our world it lias challenged men, alter the provoking method of Goliath of Gath. To sit wondering at evil as a matter of contemplative thought, Is sheer stupidity, and wors®. To tight is the very act and presence of God. And I am toll?, on good authority, that they who make a habit of It do, in the long run, score. OUR FATHER’S BUSINESS. We complain of the slow, dull life we are forced to lead, of our humble sphere of action, of our low position in the scale of society, of our having no room to make ourselves known, of our wasted energies, of our years of patience. So do we say that we have no Father who is directing our life; so do we say that God has forgotten iUs; so do we boldly judge what life is best for us; and so by our complaining do we lose the use and profit of the quiet years. Oh, men of little faith! Because you are not sent out CJ 6 1 U | n, ° y ° Ur d laboi,r do y°u think Because you are forced to be outwardly inactive, do you think you. also, may not be, in your years of quiet, 44 about your father’s business?” ... It is a period given to us in which to mature ourselves for the work which God will give us to do. —Stopford Brooke.