SUNDAY READING

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2634, 16 October 1909, Page 4 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

NOTHING MORE.

Simon rf Cyrene •..ore Ike cross or Jesus: nothing more, iiis name is never heard again. Nor honored by iu-ioric pen; Nor on the pedestal of Lime ilis hinge court-; the lead accbini. Simon of Cyrene bore The cross of Jesus; nothing more. Axd yet, when all our work is done. And golden beams tlie ue-te;ii .sun LV:n a life oi wealth and i;-k —- A thousand echoes ring ike name. LLrhaps our hearts v.dil humbly pray: ••Good Master, let the record say Upon the page divine. ‘Lie bore The cross of Jesus: nothing mere.’”

THE MUSIC CF THE TWO SYLLABLES.

(By Rev. T. de Witt Tannage.) Have you ever made up your mind by what name you will call Christ •when you meet Him in heaven? You know he has many names. Will you call him Jesus, or the Annoint-ed One, or the Messiah, or will you take cctne of the symbolical names which on ■earth you learned from your Bible? Wandering some day in the garden of God cn high, tlie place a-blccm with eternal springtide, infinite luxuriance of rose, and lily, and amaranth, you may look up into His face and ray: "Mv Lord Thou art the Rose of Sharon and tire Lily of the Yalloy.” Some dav. as a soul comes up from earth to take its place in the firmament, and shine as a star for ever and ever, and tlie lustre of a useful life shall beam forth tremulous and beautiful. you may look up into the face of Christ and say: ‘My Lord, Thou are a brighter star—The Morning Star—a star for over.” Wandering some day amid the fountains of life that toss in the sunlight and fall in crash of pearl and 'amethystin golden and crystalline urn. and you wander up tlie round-banked river to where is first tingles its silver on the rock, and out of tho chalices of love you drink to honor and everlasting joy, you may look up into the face of Christ and say: “My Lord. Thou art the Fountain of Living Water.” Some day. wandering amid the lambs and sheep in the heavenly pastures, feeding by the rock, rejoicing in the presence of Him who brought you out of the wolfish wilderness to the sheepfold above, you may look up into His loving and watchful eye. aiul say: “My Lord, Thou art the Shepherd of the Everlasting Hills.” But there is another name you may select. J will imagine that heaven is done. Every throne has its king. Every harp lias its harper. Heaven lias gathered up everything that is worth having. The treasures of tlie whole universe have poured into it. The song full. The ranks full. The mansions full. Heaven full. The sun shall set a-fire with splendour the domes of the temples, and burnish the golden streets into a blaze, and he reflected back from the solid pearl of tlie twelve gates, and it shalt- be noon in heaven, noon on the river, noon on the kills, noon in all the valleys—high noon. Tlie soul may look up, gradually accustoming itself to the vision, shading tlie eyes as from the almost insufferable splendour of tlie noonday light, until the vision can endure it, then crying out: “Thou art the Sun thatnever sets!”

“TELL MOTHER. I’LL BE THERE.”

One of tlie greatest surprises I have ever had in my entire work lias been in connection with this song, “Tell Mother I’ll be There.” A friend of mine who is a Christian worker, and a very wise one, cut the song out of a little magazine, and sent it on t<> me with tlie suggestion that I try it in. my work. 1 pasted it in my scrapbook, more because of the recommendation of my friend than because I thought there was any merit in it. I often looked at it, and thought it was a waste of space in my book, For a year I carried it around, and never once sang it. One night at tlie close of a sermon I was called on to sing a solo. I looked at the great audience, and saw that the majority of them were men, and many of them railway men. With a longing to help, but with some doubt as to which song to use, I sang “Tell Mother I’ll be There.” Many men confessed Christ immediately afterward. One big hearty engine-driver who decided for Christ came that night and shook hands with me at the close of the meeting, and said: “The sermon never reached me; their talks did not touch me; but when you sang ‘Ted Mother I’ll be There,’ the thought of my dear old mother on her deathbed two years ago broke my heart. I had made her a promise that I should meet her in heaven, and prepare for it. Instead of that, after her funeral, I sank deeper and deeper into all kinds of sin until to-night. Now I have taken her Saviour, and am ready, when God calls, to go to my mother* 1 in heaven. Sing that song every night. I will bring the men in, and. if you sing that song, we will get them.” Every night after that lie would call out tor “Tell Mother I’ll he There,” and many were brought in through the song. I have been using it- ever since, and have seen as many as 160 men at a single meeting rise and confess Christ during tlie singing cf the liymn, before the sermon had been preached. —Charles M. Alexander.

The Rev. John North entered a vigorous protest against the action of the Wellington City Council in the Town Hall fo'r a prize-fight. Town Halls, he said, should represent the ideals of a city, and it was outrageous that the chief ha;l in the Empire City should be used for a display of brutality. The Councillors had made the City contemptible, by giving (civic sanction to a degrading spectacle. There is much cf coarse savagery concealed by our civilisation, and all lovers of social purity . should record their most emphatic protest against these prize-fights, which do but appeal to the brute in man, and are alien to the humane spirt of our day.

A young fellow fresh out of the theological seminary went to an evangelistic service held bv an old gentleman. r hirty people came forward and confessed Christ. Afterwards, the young fellow came up to the old gentleman, and said, “I "don’t like the way you get people saved.” The old gentleman said, “Well. I don’t like it myself. But it’s the best way I know. How do you do it?” The young fellow coughed behiud his hand apologetically, and then said, “Well—er—you see —I don’t do it.’ The old gentleman said. “Well, I like the way I do it a great deal better than the way yon don’t do it.”