July 1927
T h e K i n g ’ s B u s i n e s s
439
TO100**''--- ““ ..
.......
to heal the sick, to relieve distress and to be thé Saviour of man kind in gerenal. But this is only “the fictitious narrative of an event that never happened.” But there was a God, One who actually came from heaven, the only begotten Son of His eter nal Father. He came to earth as the Redeemer of its people, and the thing that brought Him was His own undying passion for humanity. All the way from the Throne to the Manger and back again- by way of the Cross was a continual outpouring of Himself for the sake of others. “And if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” Alas that we should be concerned about so many things and be so little concerned about the thing that was the master passion, the sole passion indeed, of His great heart. “Must I go and empty handed, Thus my dear Redeemer meet ; Not one soul with which to greet Him, Lay no trophy at His feet?” . 11^ b —'-v- Grillus Enamoured o f the H og 'S ty , 1 Tim. 4:2; 2 Tim. 3:4; Rom. 1:24; John 3 :19. I N the Aeaean isle dwelt Circe, the daughter of the sun, who with her powerful magic had turned the companions of Ulysses into swine, “head, body, voice, and bristles,” but with their intellect as before. She shut them Up in sties and fed them swill and such other food as swine like. Ulysses, deter mined upon their rescue, provided himself through the kind offices of Mercury with a sprig of a certain plant endowed with power to resist sorcery. He thus overcame the magic art of Circe and compelled her to restore and release his companions. Austin Dobson, in his “Prayer of the Swine to Circe,” true to the record of the myth, sets forth what would be the natural complaint of men under such conditions ; “O Unmerciful ! O Pitiless ! Leave us not thus with sick men’s hearts to bleed! To waste long days in yearning, dumb distress. ...............Make us men again.” But Fenelon has imagined a dialogue between Ulysses ana Grillus, one of the men whom Circe had made to be a hog. Strange to say, Grillus would not consent to be brought back again to manhood. He said : “No, the life of a hog is so much pleasanter.” “But,” said Ulysses, “do you make no account of eloquence, poetry, and music ?.” “No, I would rather grunt than be eloquent like you.” , “But,” asked Ulysses, “how can you endure this nastiness and stench?” “It all depends,” said Grillus, “on the taste; the odor is sweeter to me than that of amber, and the filth than the nectar of the gods,” It is a fact that one of the worst curses of sin is the insensi bility of the sinner to his sin. But it is sad that some men can become so enamoured of the swine troughs of moral obliquity as to pride themselves on their insensibility. Men, like Grillus, who have sunk so low in the abyss of spiritual impotence they cannot hear the voice of God calling them back to liberty and to life. aà» : Christian Cosm etics An elderly Quaker woman with a beautiful complexion was asked what kind of cosmetic she used. She replied :—: “I use for my lips, truth; for my voice, prayer; for my eyes, pity; for my hands, charity; for my figure., upright ness; for my heart, love.”
j % i I l lu s t r a te d T ex ts | ^ For Preachers £ K g p ^ —V V t f t f - it K — - S I M " " ." - Ü K x te - ir c ® 5 i K ing Midas and His Ass's Ears Prov. 28:13; Psa. 19:12; Rom. 2:16; Num. 32:23 O NE day, unless forgiven of God, the thing done in dark ness and held in secret will be made manifest for nothing is hid that shall not be revealed. One of the most amusing of the myths is the story of how King Midas got his ass’s ears. Pan, the god of fields,: had the temerity to compare his music with that of Apollo and to challenge the god of the lyre to a trial of skill. Pan blew on his pipes and with his rustic music greatly pleased himself and his faithful follower, King Midas, who happened to be present. Then Apollo struck the strings of his lyre with, such ravishing harmony that at once Tmolus, the judge, awarded him the vic tory. The decision pleased all present but King Midas, who questioned the justice of the award. Apollo felt the insult keenly and declared that such a depraved pair of ears should no longer remain :in human form, and so he caused the ears of King Midas to grow hairy and become in length and shape like those of an ass. King Midas attempted to hide his misfortune with a heavy growth of hair, and so far succeeded that no one knew of his deformity but his barber, whom he bound to silence by great promises and by threats of dire punishment. The barber, however, found it too much to keep such a secret, so he dug a small hole in the ground, whispered the story into the earth and covered it up. Then up from the spot there grew a thick bed of hollow reeds and with every breeze that blew they' whispered the words, “King Midas has ass’s ears.” How often our spiritual deformity is hidden from the eyes of the world. As a rule the world esteems us better than we know ourselves to be. But there is a day of revelation when the secrets of men shall be judged, as Paul says, “by Jesús Christ according to my Gospel,” when the sinner shall stand forth stripped of every disguise. “He that covereth his sifi shall not prosper.” But, “Blessed is the man whose sin is covered”-!! covered by the merciful provision of God. Better ten million times ten million let God .cover your sin in His way than to indulge in the vain attempt to cover it in your own way. • ■—o— Apollo’s Passion fo r Human ity Phil. 2:8; Lu. 19:10; JOHN 6:33; Matt. 20:28 A POLLO, born of Jupiter and Latona, was the god of the . sun. Mythology has given to the youth of the world no better ideal than this sun-god who loved justice and required of those who worshipped him clean hands and pure hearts. Born in Delos, where his mother had fled to escape the wrath of jealous Juno, he ascended at once to the celestial world on the cloudless heights of Mount Olympus, where dwelt the gods and where in the great hall of his father’s palace the lovely god dess Hebe handed around to the heavenly deities at their daily feasts the ambrosia and the nectar on which they lived, while Apollo, who was also the god of music, delighted them with the tones of his lyre. Apollo’s popularity was much in evidence and he might have stayed and passed his time amid the joys and delights of his heavenly associates. But he was possessed of a passion for humanity and his breast was stirred with a desire to better the conditions of the dwellers on the earth. Ac cordingly he declined to stay in his father’s palace, and came down to earth to establish good laws, to promote civilization, Dr. W. E. Biederwolfs
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker