The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1882-03-16

I
Dack. l see Joshua coming ont that
uay OF MS encampment, and he sees the
people running and he SAYS: WHY I
really believe those are our men. They
are running i'll retreat" And soon the
retreatlng army comes up. They saw.
~ ueheral, We are all cut to pieces!
IhOSe men of Al are awful DeODIep'
Joshua falls down on his face i'm cha
grin. IL Is the only time we ever see
the Dack or his head, and he begins tn
whine, and he says: 'Uh, Lord God.
| wherefore hast Thou brought this Deo-
PIE over the Jordan? To deliver us in
10 the haIdS OF the AmOTites to DESTROY
US. would to God we had been content
ana uWClt on the other side of the JOr-
dan. What shall say when the Is
raeiltes turn their backs upon their en-
emles, Tor all the inhabitants of the
land shall hear of it, and shall environ
us around and cut off our name from
| Ihe earth' am very glad he said that.
I nn9 he Is only man after all. Be-
LoIg ne seemed supernatural, and he
| cOuiu not De an example for us. find
he knows all about human DISCOURAGE
mehts; sometimes you have seen very
| good Christian man in our day from
OVerWOrk or from sudden change i'm
the weather, or from some venOmOus
| opposition, take the position which
Joshua took, the back of the head up,
the lace down. But how did God
arouse Joshua? He said: Get thee
up. Why liest thou on thy face"
JOshua arose, | suppose, looking mOrti-
lied, but his old courage came back
/ again. That was not his defeat. He
marshals all the Israelites, and he saws
we VIII 60 up and we will take the
city OF Al" He takes most of his army
ana he hides 1t in the night behind a
ledge, of rocks. In the morning he
marches up small battalion of troops
In front of the city as by stratagem.
Inc men of Al say: "Oh, we will con
| quer those men very sOOn." The peo-
pie OF Al pursue this little battalion,
and the lsraelites, as though they
were frightened, fell back. No sooner
are al OF the people of the city started
III pursuit than Joshua stands on a
rock, and | see his hair flying in the
wind as he stretches out his spear to-
ward the doomed city, and all the
armed men behind the rocks rush to the
city, and they capture it, and put it to
the torch, and no sooner is it on fire
than those lsraelites in the city start
dOWn, pursuing the men of Al, and the
lsraellteS coming out of the city on one
side, and the battalion that had fallen
back suddenly coming up from the
| other side, between those two waves of
lsraelltlsh courage, the victory was
| gained, and as l see the smoke of the
burning city curling in the sky, and as
l hear the grOans of the defeated men
of Al and the victorious shout of the
| lsraellteS, Joshua hears something bet
ter than that: There shall not any
man be able to stand before thee all the
| days of thy life"
JOshua's troops can not stop vet.
| Forward, march," says Joshua; for
there is the City of Gideon; it has put
itself under the wing of Joshua's pro-
InpI, L.
the people send word from this city to
Joshua: Come right away. There are
hVe Kings going to destroy u.s." Joshua
| walked thTee-days' march in one
night. 1t is a dOuble-quick. When
the next morning dawns there is
Joshua and there his troops. Prepare
now to see the Gettysburg, the Water
loo, the Sedan of the ancients. Two
armies are drawn out in line of battle
near this city. The conflict opens with
| great slaughter. The Canaanites look
up and they say: 'Oh, this is Joshua
| There Is no use. He is a terrible
man" and they sounded the retreat.
And as they started the IsTaelites came
after them over the rocks, and those
Canaanltes went tumbling over the
! Lodges of Beth-OTun. And in addition
to JOshua's ammunition the catapults
of heaven poured out vOlley of hail
stones, pounding the TetTeating army
against the rocks. on" says Joshua,
this is victory; but it is getting
| toward sundOwn, and those miserable
Canaanltes are going to get away from
me, and they will come back some day,
| and they will besiege us. Oh, for day
| twice as long as any we have SEEM
Joshua Is i'll prayer. Look out now,
for when good man makes the Lord
his ally nothing is impossible. Joshua
| rises, and he looks at the descending
sun over the hills of Gideon, and he
looks at the faint crescent of the moon.
as you some times see the queen of the
night lingering around the palace of
the day. He lifts both hands in sub
lime apostrOphe, one hand pointing to-
ward the sun and the other hand point
ing toward the moon, and in the name
of the Lord who shaped the world into.
being, he lifts one hand and SAYS:
Sun, stand thou still over Gideon" and
pointing the other hand to the moon,
he says: And thou, moon, stand still
over the valley of Aialon." And for
twelve hours there was a TefTactiOn of
the suns rays, or perhaps the planetary
system literally halted. Those worlds,
that had never stopped an instant since
they were created, stopped then and
there. Look at the sun dial. Nc
change hour after hour. The sublime
record is: "The sun stood still in the
ditiOnal hours gained by that stopping
sun there was enough time to demOl-
ish, by the most tremedOus battle ever
fought, the King of Jerusalem, the
King of Hebron, the King of yarmouth,
the King of Lachish and the King of
EglOn-tive Kings. "Oh," you say, "the
sun and the moon didn't stand still"
One man says: THE sun was still any
how, ard it was no miracle" Another
man says: "If you stop the sun you
upset the whole universe" But leav-
ing to the Christian scientist the settle
ment of that question among them
selves, and wishing always that the
Joshua of the Church may get the vic
tory over the AmmOnites of the German
universities, l go and tell you that
have seen the same miracle. A bad
man does not live out half his days. His
sun may set at noon. But good man
may prOlOng his days of usefulness. If
a man in the strength of Joshua will go
forth to fight against sin and in behalf
| of the truth he shall live; a thousand
years will be as one day. John Sum-
mertield was a cOnsumptive Methodist.
On his deathbed he talked of heaven un-
til the wing of the anUplip