Covenanter Witness Vol. 54 - Rparchives.org

unsurpassed."
night."
sung."
sight,"
REFLECTIONS ON MAKING A WILL
There are many reasons why a person should
make a will. If you have in your life time accumu
lated money and other forms of wealth you need to
make a will. By making a will you will save your
heirs a lot of trouble and they will respect your
of your estate. If you have not
wishes in disposing
made a will there is bound to be different opinions
as to how the estate should be divided and maybe
hard feelings will arise. Then no one has as much
right to say how your estate is to be settled as your
self.
Having decided to make a will you will need to
keep in mind certain things relative as to how you
are to divide your estate. You will not seek to escape
any of your responsibilities ; if you have dependents
you will want to do the right thing by your de
pendents. You will recognize the rights of men and
the rights of God.
If you have been in the habit of giving your
tithes and offerings you will likely want to continue
this giving in your will. Money is a trust and we are
to use all of our money in a way that will cause it
to do the most good, and this is as true of what we
leave behind as it is of what we spend. For this rea
son when we make our wills we should consider the
claims of God.
If you want to leave money for the furthering
of the Lord's work you can leave it in various ways.
You can leave it as an endowment fund. This will
mean that only the interest of the money will be
used each year, the principle will remain intact and
continue to bear interest for years to come. This ap
peals to some people because long after they are
gone, a yearly
contribution will be given to the work.
The disadvantages of the endowment is that institu
tions and their principles change and the interest
may be furthering something that you would not ap
prove fifty years hence. Then too, a substantial gift
today might do more to further the kingdom of Je
sus Christ than the interest from that sum over a
period of years.
If you prefer you can leave your money to the
Current Account of Synod's budget and the money
will be used at the discretion of Synod. If any of the
departments of the church's work is in a particular
need your gift may ease that need, or it may 'be di
vided pro rata between all the departments. Money
left to the current account is used as the need arises.
or maybe we should say, the opportunity arises. If
to a particular
you desire you may leave your money
department, or departments, of the church's work,
either stipulating that it is for endowment or the
current account.
This article is not written to apply any pressure
upon anyone to leave money too the church, but is
written to urge people to make a will and to consider
when they are making the will the just claims of the
Church of Jesus Christ. After all there is no place
where we can invest our lives or our money to a
better advantage than in the kingdom of Jesus
Christ.
(Written by request of Synod's Special Committee.)
June 8, 1955
THE PSALMS OF THE BIBLE
By Rev. D. T. Lauderdale
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Psalm 23:1.
E. C. Olsen in his recent book, "Meditations in
the Book of Psalms," says : "The twenty-third Psalm
undoubtedly is the most universal Scripture, known
and loved in all lands. One can go on exhausting ad
jectives in an attempt to express its great message,
and still he would only have touched the fringe of its
contents. Yet it is a Psalm of only six verses. If I
were a lawyer pleading the case of the inspiration of
the Bible before a tribunal, I think I would say some
thing like this, 'Gentlemen, I rest my case upon the
twenty-third Psalm.' "
Kyle M. Yates in his late book, "Studies in the
Psalms,"
says of the -third
twenty Psalm : "It is the
first one that a child learns, the one he repeats most
often as he grows up, the one he remembers longest,
the one his thick lips repeat in the last moment of
his life. It is more than three thousand years old and
yet so new, so colorful, so adapted to our every need,
that it could well have come from the pen of God this
morning. The little child learns to repeat it at his
mother's knee. ... In the Church service the voice of
the minister speaks forth its words and the entire
audience becomes still and listens to its matchless
message. . . . When the end of life comes and the
shadows darken about one, the choice of all would be
these blessed words of David."
Charles H. Spurgeon in his noted commentary
on the Psalms, "The Treasury of David," says of the
twenty-third Psalm, "Its sweetness and spirituality
are
Robert C. McQuilken in his booklet, "The Lord
Is My Shepherd, The Psalm of Victorious Life," says,
"The twenty-third Psalm is the greatest poem ever
penned in any language. ... It is the best known
chapter of the Bible."
W. Graham Scroggie of Edinburgh, Scotland, in
his recent devotional commentary, "The Psalms,"
says that the twenty-third Psalm is, "the simplest,
sweetest song that was ever He adds, "Happy
are they who can sing it in the Scottish metrical
version to the tune of 'Stracathro,' or 'Covenanters,'
or 'Crimond.' "
Associate Reformed Presbyterian
'BE STILL, AND KNOW'
How can God give us visions when life is hurry
ing at a precipitate rate I have stood in the national
gallery and seen people gallop round the chamber and
glance at Turner's picture in the space of five min
utes. Surely we might say to such trippers, "Be still
and know Turner!" Gaze quietly at one little bit of
cloud or at one branch or at one wave of the sea or
at one ray of the drifting moon. "Be still, and know
Turner."
But God has difficulty in getting us still.
That is perhaps why He has sometimes employed the
ministry of dreams. Men have had "visions in the
In the daytime I have a Divine visitor in the
shape of some worthy thought or noble impulse or
hallowed suggestion, but I am in such feverish haste
that I do not heed it and pass it along. I do not "turn
aside, and see this great and so I lose the
Heavenly vision. If I would know more of God, I
must relax the strain and moderate the pace. I must
be "still." J. H. Jowett.
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