Welsh Journals

10 THE WELSH WEEKLY. June io, 1892. THE KHASFS PRAYER. AN ARGUMENT AND AN EXPD3TUL&TI0N. By ReY. John Hughes, M.A., Liverpool. "An, U Blei, lada me don, to pynpaw ia lade ha rya." This incident of missionary work occurred on the Khasi Hills, which are situated in the province of Assam, in the North-Esst of India. It is the missionary station of the Welsh Presbyterian Church, and their missionaries have laboured there with signal success for the last fifty years. By their labours a church of the Calvinistic type of doctrine has .been planted on the hills, which is rapidly forming a Christian civilization in the midst of one of the most degraded forms of paganism. There are Christian day-schools in a flourishing condition, scattering the good seed broadcast in the native mind, and preachers and evangelists of great power and eloquence, who are, comparatively speaking, but recent upstarts from paganism. No part of the great mission field, we believe, has been more largely blessed with the increase which God alone can give. But to our task. Ka Thabin was a young girl who frequented one of the day schools on the Hills. She seems to have been thoughtful and intelligent, with a mind set upon knowing the cause of whatever she observed. It was by means of this inquisitiveness, which is, to some extent, a natural endowment of the female mind all over the world, that she became a Christian. She was puzzled by the attitude of the Khasi school¬ master whenever he engaged in prayer before his scholars. When he imparted instruction on the first principles of morality, teaching the Khasi children, with pointed finger and earnest look, to be truthful, and honest, and just, Ka Thabin understood; but when the interval of prayer came, and the teacher, kneeling in the presence of his scholars, with closed eyes and clasped hands, carried his instruction to God, seeking his blessing upon the young who were committed to his care, she could not understand the meaning of such an act. "Who was the unseen Friend to whom the teacher addressed his prayer ? He was speaking to some person who was near. Who was He ? " These were the questions which disturbed her, and set her mind in a fever of unrest; and she determined that if the unseen Friend could be found, find Him she would. One morning, taking her hand-bill to divert the villagers' attention from her high purpose, she went betimes into the adjacent wood, as if going on a domestic errand. But her message was a far nobler one—she went on an errand of discovery, determined to find out the Unknown God. Glancing around to satisfy herself that she was alone, there in the mystic gloom of the forest, that formed a natural sanctuary overarched by the blue sky, a more magnificent dome than St. Paul's, she kneeled and prayed the simple but grand prayer, "Ah U Blei, lade me don, to pyn¬ paw ia lade ha ya," " O God, if thou art, reveal thy¬ self to me." She repeated the prayer three times, and the third time a sudden light flashed into her soul, forming within her a conception of the Supreme Being, and a definite knowledge of the Unknown God. She . returned home from that spot, which will ever remain a sanctuary in her sight, having made a grand discovery, and attained by a direct and sure way the knowledge of God, that in¬ corruptible seed that will ever deepen and grow into a life of holiness and peace in this world, and everlasting glory in the world to come. Who can realize the greatness of the change wrought in her by this simple and direct appeal to the Divine Existence ? It was to her, no doubt, a sudden and miraculous transformation from the vague gropings of one of the vilest types of paganism to the solid assurance which faith gives of the Divine Being and the Divine love. The young convert resided for some time after her enlightenment with one of the missionaries. He had thus an opportunity of testing the genuineness of the change and of watching her growth in the Christian life ; and he was thoroughly convinced of the sincerity of her conversion; and that the light that flashed into her mind in answer to her prayer in the forest was a work of divine illumination. There is, it seems to me, in this simple but striking account of the young Khasi's conversion, a very direct proof of the Being of God and the truth of Chris¬ tianity ; and I think it ought not to be allowed to pass as a mere incident of missionary life, merely to adorn a speech, or fill up a report. It is capable of further improvement with a view of meeting some sceptical tendencies which are so pre¬ valent in our age. Simple though it be, if gathers up the evidences of Christianity into a nutshell, and con¬ tains the soul of an argument and the ground of an appeal. It presents us with the most powerful solvent of unbelief; and to the honest doubter who strives and longs for the rest of faith, the Khasi's prayer offers the most direct relief. It is with this view that I wish to press it upon the reader's attention. This is a sceptical age with reference to moral and spiritual truth. Men of light and leading find it an easy matter, either to deny or ignore the great truths concerning the Being of God and man's relation to an eternal world. Science gives them an exact know¬ ledge of the external world. Through observation and experiment, the right and left hand of physical research, aided by the mathematical sciences, we have seen spreading among men/almost with the rapidity cf light, vast stores of knowledge concerning nature and its laws. And we possess this knowledge, not in the form of opinion or belief, but in the form of certainty and demonstration. The verities of science havetVeen presented to our minds, in this age of progress, in such grand and almost bewildering—profusion, that we are not at all surprised at the sceptical attitude of many minds towards certain old-fashioned truths, which have always formed part and parcel of the soul's life. There has sprung up, with the growth of science, a prejudice in many enlightened minds for exact and scientific truth. In many, perhaps the majority of scientific men, it becomes a habit of minds, produce 1 by their daily immersion in physical research. It becomes quite natural for the man who has acquired his profoundest knowledge and his strongest sensa¬ tions by measure and weight, by analysis and induction, to apply the same method of discovery and proof to truths which belong to a different sphere ; and to be sceptical of obtaining the same certainty if he cannot obtain the same proof. What is true of the man of science, surrounded by the crucibles of his laboratory, with his brain full of mathematical formulae, is true to a less extent of an age that lives in the blaze of science, whose strongest tendencies are produced by its certain verities and startling dis¬ coveries, when we consider how great a part is played in modern life by the physical and mechanical sciences, how they fasten the mind upon the laws and phenomena of matter ; and present to our senses. Force, in its transforming energy, moving like a mighty current through the world, and building up its Babel of wonders, the materialism and scepticism of the age, in the face of the great truths of man's moral and spiritual life, are but the natural effects of its progress. Let not, there¬ fore, my humble reader, who know only his Bible and his catechism, and regards them as the summary of God's truth and man's duty, be shaken in his faith by the sneers of the learned ; nor should he regard it as any presumption against the truth that men, who can calculate the appearance of a star, and weigh the ponderous mass of a planet, fail to see in this universe of law and order any argument for the Being of a God. Not that science of necessity makes man a sceptic; to say that would involve the absurdity that our faith in God must diminish in proportion to the increase of our knowledge of his works and ways towards his creatures. And this absurdity lurks in the presumption, that is too often made nowadays, that science must of necessity undermine the founda¬ tions of faith ; and that it will ultimately, when its final consummation comes, wrest the birthright of man's homage from religion. This is the perversity of unbelief. If nature is the work of God, then it is obvious that the profoundest knowledge of it cannot be inconsistent with the strongest and most real belief in His Being. And that such is the case is proved by many noble names, who have led the van of progress and scientific knowledge, and who were as illustrious for their piety as for their science. Such were Newton, and Herschel, and Faraday, and others that might be mentioned. The lives and work of such men prove that the pursuit of science, when cultivated with the heart as well as the intellect, does not lead man into the wearinesB of doubt and unbelief. But, at the same time, it is obvious from a great many instances, as well as from the prevalent tenden¬ cies of the age, that there are certain predisposing causes in man whereby science tends to materialise the mind. These predisposing causes exist in man ; and unless his moral nature is well disciplined, and his spiritual instincts quickened into life by a power which works outside the sphere of science, he is in some danger of losing sight of God, though he is surrounded by his wondrous works. It is very much the same with reference to man's relation to God's moral law. St. Paul teaches, in his Epistle to the Eomans, that even the law of God, notwithstanding its commandments are holy and righteous and good, becomes an occasion of sin to the sinner. There is a principle of unbelief and ungodliness in man by nature, that it finds an occasion of sin even in the moral law. Now, the moral law is a part of the system of nature under which the Creator placed man at the beginning ; it is an institution of nature as truly as the laws that give form and order to the material world. If, then, man finds an occasion of sin in the moral law, the same predis¬ posing causes will find an occasion of unbelief in the laws of nature ; if man fails to approach God through the moral law, which must be regarded as the keystone of God's universe, moral and physical, how much more will he fail to apprehend him in those subordinate laws that stand at a further remove from His throne. And such is the power of this principle of unbelief, this root of bitterness, that it will make short work with science, and pervert the knowledge of natural law into an occasion of unbelief and departure from God. The pride of human reason cannot be subdued by all the learning and logic of the sciences; it will, serpent¬ like, wind with the greatest ease through eullogisms and arguments in its path of error; and man, when he takes to be led by his intellect alone, paying no heed to the Divine Presence that speaks in his conscience, will find in all the works of God fuel for unbelief. "The system of physical causes," says'* well-known author, "is so much more tangible an* satisfying than that of final, that unless there be » pre-existent and independent interest in the inquirer * mind, leading him to dwell on the phenomena whic*1 betoken an intelligent Creator, he will certainly folio* out those which terminate in the hypothesis of * settled order of nature and self-sustained laws. An<* the practical safeguard against atheism in the case o* scientific inquirers is the inward need and desire, tP inward experience, of that Power, existing in the mm" antecedent and independent of their examination 01 this material world." (To be continued.) THE OUTLOOK. Largely through the efforts of the Christian Endeavour Societies, religious eervices have been provided for nearly all the life-saving stations of *"e New Jersey coast, and are being planned for all tue service throughout the United States. The population of the City of Halle, in Germany) has grown to be 100,000, yet it is only now that i°' creased church accommodations are being provided. The first new church built in the city since tfle Beformation willbe dedicated next summer. " If every human being on the American Continent were to be taken out of existence," said the la^e Professor Asa Gray, " and the whole work of n18 hands were cleared away, so that no trace remained) subsequent historians could prove that the Caucasia0 race existed upon it by the flowers that would b6 found growing there." Japan has now a school system somewhat similar to our own. Controlled by local authorities are more than 38,000 schools, of which 26,000 are elementary. The teachers number nearly 72,000, and the scholars 3,410,000, or nearly half the total population of the school age. The total annuaLexpense of the system is about 17,000,000. The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States began its sessions in Omaha, Neb., May 2. The Quadrennial Address, read by Bishop Foster, gave some exceedingly inte¬ resting particulars of the strength and growth of the organization, together with the problems that are before it. Among other things it was stated that the past quadrennium had been a prosperous one, and that the bishops had made more than 50,000 assign¬ ments of ministers and families, with but little dis¬ satisfaction. ' Work in foreign fields had been given more than ordinary care. A century of growth had made the Book Concern the largest in the world- The membership had grown rapidly, and now numbers 2,292,094 communicants, 442,000 souls having been added during the four years by comparison with the four years preceding. Contributions to all missionary societies had increased by $334,000. DR. PARKER ON PARTY POLITICS. Dr. Parker devoted his one-minute sermon in the City Temple on Sunday morning to the subject of political voting. He said :—The Parliamentary dis¬ solution is upon us. The minister who would say one word in his pulpit in favour of merely party politics is unfit for the position, which he betrays and degrades. Let every man vote at the election ac- cording to his conscience. All truth and right cannot be held by either Lord Salisbury or Mr. Gladstone- Let us search out the case under a deep sense of responsibility, and act upon our convictions, be tb0 consequences what they may. I believe—and this is the severest strain that can be put upon human faith —that it is still possible to be both a politician and a gentleman. From your cros3 of sorrow and persecution proclaim the religion of the epoch. Soon shall it receive the consecra¬ tion of faitb. Let not the hateful cry of reaction be heard on your lips, nor the sombre formula of the con¬ spirator, but the calm and solemn words of the days 1° come. From our cross of misery and persecution, we mean of exile, the representatives in heart and faith of the enslaved races, of millions of men constrained to silence, will respond to your appeal, and say to our brothers : The alliance is founded. Answer your persecutors with the formula God and the people. They may rebel and plasp- heme against it for a while, but it will be accepted and worshipped by the people.—Mazzinix