Calvin Synod Herald, 1973 (73. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1973-12-01 / 12. szám

REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA

3

All hail, Thou noble Guest, this morn, Whose love did not the sinner scorn; In my distress Thou com’st to me; What thanks shall I return to Thee?

Were earth a thousand times as fair, Beset with gold and jewels rare,

She yet were far too poor to be,

A narrow cradle, Lord, for Thee.

Ah dearest Jesus, Holy Child Make Thee a bed, soft, undefiled,

Within my heart, that it may be A quiet chamber kept for Thee.

Martin Luther

OL Child

You little children, in whose eyes

Undimmed the light of heaven glows, Whose dreams are bright with paradise, Whose souls are whiter than the snows, From holy lips and undefiled Breathe your soft prayer to Christ the Child!

O saving hands! O Christ, that hears A mortal mother’s lullabies;

That feels our agony and tears,

Whose bosom trembles with our sighs, Give us pure hearts and undefiled Make us like Thee, O Christ the child!

Leading Editorial, New York Sun, December 25, 1897.

For Your Christmas Meditation

The angel said to the shepherds, “Fear not.” It was a world of fear just as ours is a world of fear today. Recently the President of the United States said, “The world lives under a pall of fear.” Despite our liberty and our scientific advancement and all our boasted civilization, human fear is unprecedented. Most of us fear everything but God, when it is God whom we should fear most of all. But if we are reconciled to God through Christ, we need not have any fear, for “perfect love casts out fear” (I John 4:18). The only freedom from fear at this Christmas season is in Christ. “Fear not” says the Christmas angel, “for unto you is bom a Savior.”

Billy Graham

Mark Twain’s Christmas Wish

It is my heart-warming and world-embracing Christmas hope that all of us — the high, the low, the rich, the poor; the admired, the despised; the loved, the hated; the civilized, the savage — may eventually be gathered together in a heaven of everlasting rest, peace and bliss . . . except the inventor of the telephone.

(On the door of the telephone closet in the Mark Twain House, Hartford, Connecticut.)

MAGYAR MARTYRS OF MISSIONS IN MALAYA

There was a hushed silence in the Bible study group of Hódmezővásárhely, Old Kirk, as the appaling news was broken about the cruel death of Dr. and Mrs. Julius Cseszkó in Indonesia. Mrs. Cseszkó’s mother, Mrs. Hadady was a faithful member of our prayer-group. The year was 1946, and the country, Hungary, was just getting adjusted to the grip of its new rulers.

Dr. Julius Cseszkó and his wife, neé Emma Hadady de Eőrhalma in the twenties were studying in Leyden, Holland and in 1931 they were sent by a Reformed Church Mission Board as medical missionaries to the islands dotting the South Pacific between the Philippines and Celebes. After further studies and training in tropical medicine on the Island of Java, finally on Christmas Eve, 1932 they arrived at their first mission station, the Island of Shanghi. The Dr. Cseszkós were the first European-trained medical missionaries who organized the systematic medical care of the extensive insular mission field.

They both had a strong sense of divine calling and set themselves with full dedication to their task. They reorganized the so far amateurish medical stations, provided trained personnel and medical supplies and the doctor, according to a regular monthly timetable, paid regular visits to the clinics on the various islands. His usual vessel was a small outboard motor boat, a rather precarious means of transportation, but he adhered to his schedule with an almost fanatical sense of duty. The Rev. J.E.E. Scherrer, a Swiss missionary, says:

“Nothing could refrain him: neither the stormy weather,

PEACE ON EARTH