The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-04-19 00:00:00

THE FAMINE IN MOROCCO.

The following extracts from a letter recently received
from the Rev. J. B. Ginsburg, missionary to the Jews at
Mogador, Morocco, gives an account of the dreadful famine
still raging in that part of Africa
"The Mizpah, Mogador, Morocco, February 26.
- - -•

"We have passed a season of indescribable diffi-
culties, misery, sickness, and trial ever since I
returned to my station. Hundreds, I may well
say thousands,- pressed to the gates for relief;
skeletons—emaciated by hunger, almost naked, bear-
ing traces of every possible disease and suffering '
—who, for a loaf of bread, would be trodden
down by the crush, bruised, and not unfrequently
seriously injured; sometimes a leg or arm broken in
their eagerness to be the first to receive relief. When
out of town on my daily walks I hardly ever re-
turned without picking up a dying man, woman, or
child, sometimes two or three at a time; brought
back to town, a plate of soup and a cover were
sufficient to bring life to the dying. More than
once have I met a young man or woman coming from
the country with no strength to finish the last
quarter of a mile, with bruised head and broken
teeth from falls in the effort to get up from the ground.
The starvation was not confined to men; cattle,
camels, horses, asses, sheep, and poultry have all, or
nearly all, perished. But the dogs have survived, and
in their insatiable hunger, finding no food in OWDB,
and abandoned by their masters, who either died or
left their villages in search of food, fed on human flesh.
Roaming over the country in bands of 20, 30, or 50,
they sometimes even attacked any human being_ they
met and devoured him. Some 20 men, women, and chil-
dren were eaten up within one mile of the town One
day I was busy by the river side' with the help of my
servant, giving assistance to a dying young woman,
when our attention was drawn to an Arab' gho was
being eaten by dogs. He was dead before we reached
him, and we had only the painful duty of burying the
remains decently in the sand. I must apo:ogise for
writing about such hideous misery to you. But, dread-
ful to read, what is it to witness? There are cues which
have come before me that I cannot really pu; on paper.
More than 13,000 have in this town penshed from
hunger. There were dead or dying lying inevery street
in and out of town. The dead were buriod not more
than one span deep, and the dogs soon uncovered the
earth. The sight of so much misery o our fellow
creatures has naturally affected the Diropeans, and
among the victims we have deplore our excellent
schoolmistress. She was devoted to the school, and
a truly sensible Christian lady. On Friday she left
the school, and was no more among the living the
Sunday following. Small-pox, measles, cholera, and
typhoid fever (the latter now rrgiug) have sus-
ceeded each other. There is harcly a house where
there is not one sick person. Is the Mullah, or
Jewish quarter, every house has been turned into a
hospital.

Newburyport, Mass., has 1,300 more women than
men. It is a small place, "and," toys the New York Sun,
"a wedding there creates almost AS much sadness as a
funeral."
Numerous viaits have been vaid to G-.ineral Gari-
baldi by political personages. peplying to a deputation
from an Italian committee at Tries.e, he is reported to have
said : "I have never been gore occupied with the
interests of our brethren beyond ale Alps than at present."

Mr. SPURGEON at the METROPOLITAN
TABERNACLE.

-
After a prolonged absence through illness, Mr,Spurgeon
resumed his duties at the Tabernacle on Sunday. The build-
ing was der.sely crowded. The rev, gentleman, who appeared
to have lost nothing of his well-known earnestneas, eloquence,
end buoyancy, preached from the words, "They will abun-
dantly utter the memory of Thy great goodness, and shall
sing of Thy righteousness."
At the outset Mr. Spurgeon remarked that he felt
rusty and somewhat out of service, that the key had
been hanging idly so long on the bunch that it seemed
rusted, but perhaps it might still open the lock which
it had so of ten fitted. The psalm from which the text
was taken was called David's Psalm of Praise. It
would be noticed that God was to be praised for
his righteousness. That was the God revealed in the
Old and New Testament, the God who by the com-
mon consent of modern philosophers was quite too
severe and as much out of date as Jupiter
himself. In many and many a place it was
a new come up God, which our fathers knew
not, that was worshipped. With all the stern
severity to which they would not wish to be blind,
their God was also loving, kind, and long suffering.
There was great goodness in the God of Sion, and, let
rebellious spirits murmur as they might, He willeth all
things for good to His creatures. Nobody knew tho-
roughly the blessing of health who had not lately been
tortured in every nerve and sinew; and so none knew
what salvation flora sin meant unless he had felt the
burden of sin and the torturing agony of remorse. As
for himself, he would speak of God as he had found
Him. From his childhood even till now He had amazed
him with His mercy and astounded him with His by.
causing his spirit almost to swoon away
beneath the sweetness of His love, Yet had He not
spared him the rod nor would He. They should all
observe and remember the goodness of God. A
man's religion was not worth a penny unless it had
taken hold of him. Everything in our lives should
suggest the goodness of God. For himself, his bed
would ever be associated with God's mercies in
the night watches, his garments would be associated
with God's goodness in giving him power to put
them on, since there had been times when he could
not lift a hand even for so simple a work as
that. With every bit of furniture in their rooms they
might associate the memory of some goodness of God.
There was that well-thumbed Bible—that very par-
ticular one, he meant--getting rather dirtier now—
why, out of it texts gleamed as if God set stars in
them and made them shine into their very souls. A
man whom he went to visit in an hospital paid him
a great compliment. "You seem," he said, "to
have hung this hospital with texts for me; you
said one thing about the window, another about the
door, and as I lie here I recollect what you said."
Better to recollect what God does. They could re-
member a Black Friday or a Black Monday in
the City, but did they rememl-er as well the
days of God's special goodness! Having urged the
duty of cmsidering and remembering God's mercies,
he pressed upon his hearers the duty of uttering
them. There were plenty of fluent people about
—the Lord deliver us from some fluent women—
and he would not mind how fluent they were on this
topic. Don't stop them; they cannot exaggerate.
Their memories would not remain good unless they
uttered what they had observed, just as buys
learned their lessons more quickly by going over
them aloud, the memory of the ear coming to
the aid of the understanding. After abundant
utterance of God's goodness, they were to sing of His
righteousness. In the old Greek mythology, the goddess
of Memory was the mother of the Muses, and where
there was a memory of God's goodness there would
sooner or later be the song. And this song was of
His righteousness—a righteousnes which reached to
the sternness of severity, and yet was illimitably good
to those who trusted in Him .Some very quiet
people never spoke of the love and goodness of (lad;
none but God could be patient with them. We should
indulge the divine propensities of our nature. Their
souls said, "Speak," and etiquette said, "Hush, be
quiet, or they will take you for a fanatic." In such a
noi.y world as this the praise of God would be
drowned if they did not speak abundantly of His
goodness and righteousness. The more that was
said against God the more they should say for
him. When they heard a man curse they should say,
"Bless the Lord ! " and let him hear it too. The man
might want to know what they were at, which would
give them an opportunity of asking what he was at,
and he would find more difficulty in explaining
than they. And why should they not praise God, stir-
rounded as they were with mercies. Some pro-
fessed Christians were growlers by profession' always
finding fault, and the best of things in the world were
not good enough for them, Rejoicing in God, they
would aid in the conversion of others. It was not
religion to draw a long face and talk of the trials of
the world, or to sit down with a brother of the same
character, and have a little comfortable misery.
Nobody said : "Let us join with these people; we
perceive God is with them; they are so miserable
they are on their way to heaven." Well, he hoped
they were, for they were in want of some better
place. Men who talked of the goodness of
God went through the world with a smiling face, not
as if they were orphans, but like children who had still
a Father alive in heaven who cared for them. The
blessed seductiveness of such a happy life would draw
men to Christ. There was a deal of misery in
the world at present. Therefore they should be
the happier in their relations with God. That
venerable man of God, Dransfield, used on a
foggy November morning to come to him and say,
"A dreary morning, dear pastor, and as there is
nothing to rejoice about outside, I hope we
shall have a very happy service, and then shake
hands till he felt as if it were the middle of summer.
Thank God, matters were no worse than they were,
The weather was gloomy, but the sun was not quite
blown out. Let them wash out of their mouths that
bad flavour of bad trade and bad weather, and
try to sweeten their breath with a great mass of
praise. If any of them seemed to be going too far in
blessing God, for once he would give them absolution,
and he had never offered to do so before. Let them
set the bells a-ringing, and all their lives long ring the
praises of the blessed God.—Daily Telegraph.
A CHILDREN'S EXHIBITION.

The Earl of Shaftesbury presided on Monday
afternoon at the opening of an "exhibition of skill
and industry" at Bolingbroke-road, Battersea, the
exhibitors being Sunday scholars of the district
schools, and the exhibition being held in the Board
school. Although an exhibition of merely local in-
terest, the articles numbered some hundreds and were
arranged in 14 classes. The classes may be said to have
been in three divisions—i.e., from I. to V., in-
clusive, for boys only ; from VI. to XIII. for
girls only ; and class IV. for the two sexes. In the
boys' department plzes were offered for the best epeci-
mens of skilled work, from imitation graining, sign
writing, models, &c., from boys under 18 years of age,
to the beat specimen of schoolboy round hand from
youngsters under nine years of age. In the girls' de-
partment prizes were offered, and eagerly contested
for, for the best work appertaining to the sex, from a
piece of the finest lice to boiled potatoes or greens, a
home.made shirt, or a patch, 6 by 4, on an old gar-
ment. Freehand drawing, maps, and models by both
sexes were also exhibite.d and were critically examined
by Lord Shaftesbury. The room had been decorated,
and some fine plants relieved the tables.
Lard Shaftesbury, in opening the exhibition, said
that he looked on these exhibitions as things from
which nothing but good could arise. He was sure
that the Easter holiday was much better spent in this
way than in roaming up and down Greenwich-hill.
The work they had before them taught the young how
best to employ their leisure hours. They were
incentives to industry and promoted happiness.
He had admired everything he had seen in the
room, but especially the food collection. Food
was a matter of vital importance, and good cooking
meant not only a good meal, but happiness and
a good temper. He hoped that the young would
look on the prizes they had gained in this exhibition as
a starting-point for other and higher prizes—the
highest for a religious life. Children could do a great
deal by religion and industry, and he prayed for the
success of the children. He hoped that in another year
the success of the exhibition would be doubled, and he
wished it every success, hoping that it would live and
flourish.
The exhibition was then deolared open. It may be
aided that it is an annual work, executed by a com-
mittee of the residents of the district, and confined to
Sunday scholars.