SUNDAY READING.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2598, 4 September 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING.

Ask God to give thee grace in- comfort’s art, That thou may’st consecrated be and set apart Unto a life of simpathy; For heavy is the weight of woe in every heart, And comforters are needed much, Of Clirist-like touch. FIRST THINGS FIRST. (By F. B. Meyer, 8.A.) You won’t get on if you leave God out of your reckoning. Happy are they who put the first things first. Many put secondary things first, others put last things first; the number of those who put first tilings first is comparatively small. One of the most important matters for each of us who essays to build the house of our life is te find out which are the first things m God’s universe and to square and shape the life with these in the right and first place. Now, of all the important first things of the world, the first and most important is God. Rut God| in His right place, and the house is builded on a rock and will withstand even the last great storm that shall sweep through the universe. Put God in the second place, or leave Him out altogether, and there can be no alternative but to see the structure, which has cost so much pains and seems so pretty and fair, crash heavily to the ground. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall •be added unto you.” If you put God where- Ho should be, you will not undervalue the one restday which He has given; and from keeping the day of rest you will be led to setting apart at least a tenth of your income for His service; and these are two of the most important factors in determining the rate and stableness of our getting on. “A STRIKING INCIDENT. At Changtehfu, Mr Goforth told _ a very beautiful story of a Chinese Christian—a preacher—who in 1900 was out preaching in a country place, and returned to find that a Boxer had killed bis two children. His heart was filled with hatred to this man. He would not kill him himself, but a friend did so, and he wanted the Boxer’s two sons killed also. At the meetings the Holy Spirit convicted him of his sin. He confessed it, and now has adopted the Boxer’s two children. ’What a testimony to the power of God. GOSPEL AIRSHIPS. Rev. IV. Kingscote Greenland, writing in “The Young Man,” suggests I that the coming of the airship will materially affect tlie diffusion or the Gospel throughout the world. He looks forward with confidence to the day when the first missionary airship will sail with a precious cargo of heroic hearts and copies of the Holy Scriptures. Already, he says, the airship can travel one hundred miles an hour. That would mean that the missionary could get to America in a day and a quarter; he could leave England on Tuesday, and' preach in Calcutta or Hankow on the following Sunday. How this would almost do away with the tragedy of parting with wife and children anci dear ones that now makes the missionary’s lot so sadly heroic. Another advantage which Mr Greenland imagines will accrue from the missionary airship is that in case of attack by natives, outbreak of fire, or flood, the ability to sail upward into serene air and safety will much lessen the trials of his life. MISS FANNY CROSBY. Miss Fanny Crosby, the hymn writer, is still active in evangelistic work in spite of her eighty-nine years. On a irecent Sunday afternoon she addressed a large audience at the Rescue Mission at Springfield, Mass. A report in the local Press expresses surprise at ‘the strength of mind and spirit that is bound up in the little body of this beautiful old woman.’ Miss Crosby said she hoped God would allow her to live a few years longer, that she might gather in a few more sheaves.

Hurry means also worry, and haste is waste. Study to bo habitually calm. “A meek and quiet spirit is,” in the sight of God, “of great price.” The rush of modern social life is especially fatal to the prayer-habit; for until the spirit is hushed and becalmed in His presence, God cannot reflect His own image in our consciousness.—J. Hudson Taylor. - \

The “Missionary Review” of the world states that there is added to the Christian Church, out of the non-Chris-tian nations, more than three thousand converts every week. It took seven years in China to win the first convert. Now, on tlie average, four hundred new converts are daily added to the Church. During the last ten years, in India, while the entire population of the country has increased two and one-half per cent., the Christian Church has increased thirty per cent. In Korea, this year, they added sixty per cent, to their entire Church membership, and sixty per cent, the year before.

Sir Oliver Lodge, speaking at an adult school in Birmingham on a, recent Sunday, expressed his surprise at the people who were so much upset by earthquakes that they wrote to the press to say their faith had been undermined, and they could no longer believe in a beneficent Ruler of the universe. That was a result of ignorance, of want of thought. It was part of their understanding of the universe to realise that the crust,of the earth would settle down, and tho people that were living in the immediate centre of the disturbance would suffer. Such things did not occur casually or accidentally, but in a perfectly law-abiding way, which could be allowed for beforehand, and. against which precautions could be taken. 1