Juniata sentinel. [volume] (Mifflintown, Pa.) 1846-1873, 1871-03-22
Correspondence Of the SENTINEL.
Letter from Rev. d. ]. Beale.
CT GYORCE

OEOh0E, Dci.p MofCu Aos AOsA -
Mr.. EDITOR Please find enclosed
my subscription money for the cur
rent year. l value the papers of my ma
tive county more and more. They arr
the first Of all my mail that ] peruse.
l have never known SO many disaster
and sudden deaths before. as are now oc
curing around us. On the Monday tina
my lovely little cousin, John Laird, o
Patterson, was so suddenly killed, one o
our finest young men, a druggist wen
out cunning with few other young men
and was shot accidentally by comrade
He bled to death. Humanity speaking
there was no need of bis dying from tht
wound, which was in the leg, just back
of and above the knee. Had the young
men Cor boys, rather, for none of them
were over 20 years of age,) at once tied
handkerchief or cord around the limb
above the wound, and putting the ram
rod into the knot, screwed it very tightly
they might surely have stopped the flow
of blood or, had they taken up the ar
terry (for there is but one above the knee
they might have tied it; but they let the
poor man bleed to death without a we'll
directed effort to save him.
On the day after this melancholy oc-
currence an auctioneer, out in the coun-
try, was crying a sale. and there and then
had paralytic stroke, occasioning death
in few hours.
Two prominent citizens of this neigh
borhood. aged men, died the same week
from heart disease, without twenty mill-
utes' illness in either case.
On Sabbath a week ago l was called
upon to assist in funeral services on the
occasion of the burial of our Methodist
ministers only child. She had died sud-
denly from that fearful disease, MEM
branous Group. We laid little Annie
Thompson's mortal remains in the Mount
Moriah Cemetery. Philadelphia. Bishop
Scott, who lives four miles from St
George, and two other ministers accom-
panied the funeral party.
On Saturday last another of our drug
gists, (son of the celebrated Bringhust, J
had one eye and part of his head blown
away by the bursting of an iron retort
which he was manipulating. His brain
can be seen. His recovery is very
doubtful.
The wife of one of our ruling elders
was buried on Thursday last. Thus you
see l have been brought to look upon
death of late in its most fearful forms.
feel like one standing on the very verge
of eternity. trust "familiar thoughts
will slope the way" Just here l think
of a striking expression an old lady, the
other day, told me her grandmother used
to employ: "Work as if you intended
to live forever, and pray as if you were
to die Tomorrow"
''All flesh is grass and all its glory fades
Like the fair flower disheveld in the wind
Riches have wings, anu grandeur is a dream
The man We celebrate MIST find tomb.
And we that worship him. ignoble graves.
Nothing is proof against the general curse
OF vanity. that seizes all below
The only amsranthine flower on earth is yir-
tue.
The only lasting treasure truth
Perhaps nothing strikes the minister
of the Gospel more forcibly. as he stands
around so many death beds, than the
truth that " the ruling passion is strong
in death" Delirious or rational. it will
crop ou:. The fast young man who
drove fast horses, imagining that he was
behind them in his carriage, with his
dying breath, mged them onward.
heard him. An aged Christian who died,
near by, some time ago, was. in his last
moments, visited by an old friend and
young minister. The old friend of
quarter of century asked him about his
health. The dying man made no reply.
The former asked him if he knew him,
(mentioning his own name). The sink
ing Christians lips showed him to be in
prayer. l approached his bedside and
said, L" Mr.. Townsend, do you know the
Lord Jesus Christ ?" "Oh, yes, oh, yes
He is my only hope" In the weak
ness and WEAKNESS of his crumbling tab
ernable the love of Christ constrained
him. 1t was fitting close of life for one
who had so steadfastly been engaged in
the Masters work for more than half
1t is said that the spirit of Napo leon
|eaped from its prison-bound walls amid
one of the fercest storms that ever rocked
his lonely isle. And it is said that his
1elirious soul, in the last solemn hour,
seemed once more to be in the midst of
the fight-once more to be in the midst
Of the roar and smoke and storm of bat
tie, struggling by the pyramids, or along
the Danube, or on the plains of Italy
His ruling passion was strong in his last
throes, for his glazed eye
seemed to catch the head of his mighty
columns, as torn, yet steady. they bore