The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1882-08-10

| ueIF6S, anu CledT eyeSlgnG, anu SOOO
hearing, and plenty of friends are neces-
sary to make a man happy, you have
miscalculated. / suppose that these
overhanging rocks only made Jonathan
| scramble the harder and the faster to
get up and out into the sunlight, and
this combined shadow of invalidism and
financial embarrassment has often sent
a man up the quicker into the sunlight
of Gods favor and the MONDAY of His
glorious promises, 1t is a difficult thing
for man to feel his dependence upon
God with $4,000 in the bank and $5O,-
600 in Government securities and a
block of stores and three ships. "Well,
| the man says to himself, sit is silly for
me to pray Give me this day my daily
| Bread when my pantry is full and the
canals from the west are crowded with
breadstuffs destined for my store houses"
Oh, my friends, if the combined misfor-
tunes and disasters of life have made
| you climb up into the arms of sympa-
thetic and compassionate God, through
all eternity you will bless him that in
this world there was a sharp rock on
| the other side.
Again, that man is in the crisis of the
text who has home troubles and outside
persecution at the same time. The
world treats man we'll Just so long as
1t pays best to treat him well. AS long
as 1T can manufacture success out of his
bone, and brain and muscle it faVOrs
him. The world fattens the horse it
wants to drive. But let man see it
his duty to cross the track of the world,
| then every bush is full of thOrns and
| tusks thrust at him. They will belittle
| him. They will caricature him. They
will call his generosity self-aggrandize-
ment, and they will call his piety sane
ttmontousness. The very worst persecu-
tiOn will some time come upon him
from those who profess to be Christians.
John MiltOn--the great and good John
MiltOn-so forgot himself as to pray, in
so many words, that his enemies might
be eternally thrown down in the dark
est and deepest gulf of hell, and be the
undermOst and most detected and the
lOwest-down vassals of peTditiOn! And
Martin Luther so far forgot himself as
to say in regard to his theological Oppo
nents: "Put them in whatever sauce
you please, roasted, or fried, or baked, or
stewed, or boiled, or hashed; they are
nothing but asseSP All, my friends, if
John Milton and Martin Luther could
come down to such scuTTility, what may
you not expect from less elevated OppO-
nentsp Now, the world sometimes takes
after them, the newspapers take after
them, public opinion takes after them,
and the unfortunate man is lied about
until all the dictionary of Billingsgate
is exhausted on him. You often see
man whom you know to be good, and
pure and honest, set upon by the world,
and mauled by whole communities,
while vicious men take on a super
cilious air in condemnation of him-as
though Lord Jeffrey should write an es-
say on gentleness, or Henry VIII. talk
about purity, or HerOd take to blessing
little children.
Now, a certain amount of persecution
rOuses a mans defiance, stirs his blood
for magnificent battle, and makes him
fifty times more man than he would
have been without the persecution. So
it was with the great refOrmer when he
said: 81 will not be put down; 1 will be
heard" And so it was with Millard,
the preacher, in the time of Louis XII.
When Louis XII. sent word to him that
unless he stopped preaching in that
style he would throw him into the river,
he replied: Tell the King that will
reach heaven sooner by water than he
will reach it by fast horses" A certain
amount Of persecution is tonic and an
inspiration; but too much of it, and too
long continued, becomes the rock of
BOzez, throwing a dark shadow over
mans life. What is he to do then? Go
home, you say. Good advice that. That
is just the place for man to go when
the world abuses him. Go home. Blessed
be God for our quiet and sympathetic
homes. But there is a man who
has the reputation of having a home
when he has none. Through unthink-
iDgness or precipitation there are many
matches made that ought never to have
been made. An officiating priest can
not alone unite a couple. The Lord AL
mighty must proclaim bans. There is
many a home in which there is no
sympathy, and no happiness, and no
good cheer. The clamOr of the battle
may not have been heard outside, but
God knows, notwithstanding all the
playing of the wedding March," and
all the OdOr of the orange blossoms, and
the benedictiOn of the officiating pastor,
there has been no marriage.
Sometimes men have awakened to find
on one side of them the. rock of perse-
cutiOn, and on the other side the rock of
domestic infelicity. What shall such
one doP Do as Jonathan did-climbP
Get up into the heights of Gods con-
ISOLATION, from which he may look down
in triumph upon outside persecution
and home trouble. While good and
great John Wesley was being silenced by
the Magistrates, and having his name
written on the board fences of London
in dOggerel, at that very time his wife
was making him as miserable as she
cOuld-acting as though she were pos
sessed with the devil, as l suppose she
was-neVer doing him a kindness until
the day she ran away, so that he wrote
in his diary these words: 81 did not for
sake her; have not dismissed her;
will not recall her." Planting one foot,
as John Wesley did, upon outside perse-
cution, and the other upon home trouble,
he climbed up into the heights of
Christian joy, and, after preaching forty
thousand sermons and travelling two
hundred and seventy thousand miles,
reached the heights of heaven, though
in this world he had it hard enough-1a
sharp rock on the outside, and a sharp
rock on the other side."
Again that woman stands in the crisis
of the text who has bereavement and a
struggle for livelihood at the same time.
Without mentioning names, speak from
| observation. Oh! it is hard thing for
| a woman to make an honest living, even
| when her heart is not troubled, and she
has fair cheek and the magnetism of
an exquisite presence. But now the hus-
| band or the father is dead. The expenses
| of the Obsequies have absorbed all that
was left in the savings bank, and, wan
| aud wasted with weeping and watching,
4 N rRT EMk h