October' 1927
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s ;?
630
“It cannot be quiet, it cannot rest; There must be heaving on Ocean’s breast; The tide must ebb, and the tide must flow, Whilst the changing seasons come and go.”
be no question but that it is His will to give it to us. To doubt that such a prayer will be heard is absolutely in excusable. Such a person is doubleminded and fickle in his ways. He is like a cork on the top of a wave,' driven by the wind first toward the shore, and then toward the sea. God forgive us, if our faith is like a wave of the sea, the most transitory thing in existence! . When we ask God for wisdom, let us claim His promise and expect an answer. But the restless waves have a message for the unsaved as well (Isa. 57:20-21): “But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, for the wicked.” What a picture of unrest are the waves of the sea! Night and day, day in, and day out, they toss and roll. What a picture of the heart of the unsaved! No rest! No peace! No satisfaction! Going this way and that in search of pleasure, but finding nothing to satisfy the craving of his heart! Is that your condition? If so, may God help you to put your trust in Christ and find peace for your soul. ■ when shall the Ocean’s troubled breast Calmly and quietly sink into rest? Oh, when shall the waves' wild murmuring cease, And the mighty waters be hushed to peace? pagmwaifHE comments of the following paragraphs on Gal. 6 :7, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall (dTp-L he also reap,” are accredited to John Ruskin. 'msBsin ■*-n these days, when many seem prone to forget * « B r the invariable law- of nature—each “after his ■' r t l l kind”—and when many young people think they can sin with impunity because of so-called scientific safe guards, it is well to be reminded that, after all, “God is ,not mocked,” and His law of harvest cannot be qutwitted. ■Mr. Ruskin wrote: Reap corruption. The most dangerous because most attractive form of modern infidelity, pretending to exalt ¡the beneficence of the Deity, degrades it into a reckless ■infinitude of mercy, and blind obliteration of the work of sin; and does this chiefly by dwelling on the manifold appearances of God’s kindness on the face of creation. ■ Such kindness is indeed everywhere and always vis ible; but not alone. Wrath and threatening are invar iably mingled with the love; and in the utmost solitudes 'of nature the existence of hell seems to ipe as legibly de clared by a thousand spiritual utterances as that of heaven. 'It is well for us to dwell with thankfulness on the unfold ing of the flower, and the falling of the dew, and the •sleep of the green fields in the sunshine; but the blasted trunk, the barren rock, the moaning of the bleak winds, ¡the roar of the black, perilous whirlpools of the mountain streams, the solemn solitudes of moors and seas, the ¡continual fading of all beauty into darkness and of all strength into dust—have these no language for us? i ' V ain - S ophistries of M en ; We may seek to escape their teaching by reasonings touching the good which is wrought out of all evil; but ¡it is vain sophistry. The good succeeds to the evil as day ¡succeeds the night, but so also the evil to the good. 'Gerizim and Ebal, birth and death, light and darkness, jheaven and hell, divide the existence of man and his ¡futurity.
If our lives be likened to an ocean, then there is one more lesson we must learn. It is found or suggested in Psa. 107:29-30: “He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof aré still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.” No matter how long we may roam over life’s sea, we look forward finally to our desired haven. Landing on the shores of eternity, we expect to enter the city of the re deemed and meet our loved ones there, yea, best of all, we look forward to meeting our Saviour face to face and dwelling with Him forever. Then ours shall be a never- ending joy and a never-ending peace. “Storm-tossed and weary, on life’s troubled sea,
Jesus will steer my small vessel for me. Thou who?art willing to help to the end. Jesus, my Captain, my Pilot, my Friend! Guide me through perils of tempest and shoal; Steer this frail; storm-beaten bark to its goal. Pardon my fearfulness, help unbelief, Speak to my beating heart words of relief. . Then with high courage I’ll cross lifers wild sea, Reaching at length that fair haven with Thee.”
Life, the Seed T ime of E tern ity B y J ohn R usk in
Nature has no forgiveness, Providence has no for giveness, Revelation has forgiveness only on conditions. It is of no use, it can be of no use to us either here or hereafter, to attempt to practice a deception on ourselves. We must take God as we find Him, as He presents Him self to us in nature, in providence, in the Word, and not as we would make Him over to suit our own desires. Christ was full of mercy, His mission was a mission of love; but you can find nowhere in the Bible more terrific representations of the hopeless, eternal miseries of the wicked in the future life than those which are ascribed to Christ in the first three Gospels. If there be a life to come, then the evil deed you did is not ended by its commission, but it will still go on and on. The evil you have done to others will remain throughout eternity; the evil you have done to your own soul will spread. There is no perhaps. These are things which will be hereafter. You can not alter the eternal laws. You can not put your hand in the flame and not be burnt. You can not sin in the body and escape the sin, for it goes inward, becomes part of you, and is itself the penalty which cleaves for ever and ever to your spirit. Sow in the flesh, and you will reap corruption; yield to passion, and it becomes your tyrant and your torment; be sensual, self-indulgent, indolent, worldly, hard—oh, they all have their corresponding penalties! “Whatso ever a man soweth, that MUST he also reap.” The Unique Negro Soul Thomas Nelson Baker points out that the negroes were not the first nor only slaves, but no slaves ever produced anything like the Negro Melodies, except the Hebrew Psalms. Indians and Caribs were slaves, but they pro duced nothing like the Negro melodies. There is some thing in the Negro soul. There is something unique in the Negro’s will to live. If he cannot live just as he wants to live, he will live the best he can.”
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker