Jamestown weekly alert. [volume] (Jamestown, Stutsman County, D.T. [N.D.]) 1882-1925, 1884-01-25


IN dltiance of the law.
A VERY little incident sometimes
teaches an important lesson. The other
morning in this city little boy scarcely
above the age or beyond the stature of
infancy, with rags wrapped around his
feet as their only protection against the
singing cold of the snow and cutting
edges of the ice over which he trod, went
about from house to house bearing a
written appeal from his mother for aid,
her husband having deserted and left her
and their children destitute. She had man :
aged by her industry to feed and clothe
them and herself! not comfortably, but
so they did not suffer severely, until her
health gave way under the burden of toll
and prlva.ion and she could no longer
provide for herself and little ones. In
her last extremity she sent her little boy
out to seek what she was no longer able
to provide by her labor, which was the
first information many of her near neigh
bors had OF her destitute condition. The
appeal was not fruitless, and her necessi.
ties were soon provided for by the gen.
erous people of the city, to whom the
appeal of the worthy destitute for aid ls
never made in vain. Similar incidents
have occurred here before and are occur
ing in the cities and towns in all parts of
the country from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, but we cite this one to more
forcibly impress the lesson We wish to
teach .......
On the same day and perhaps on the
same street in many places may no doubt
be seen the representatives of two differ
ent charitable missions. both charitable
and worthy when they do not con-
flict. One of these IS fttingly repre-
sented by the little boy we have men,
toned asking for food to still the cries,
that pierce the mothers heart like dag
ger, of little ones who are crying for
bread she cannot give and shlvoring from
wretched hovel The other charity is
by gentlemen warmly muf-
fled in their overcoats and fur collars,
and ladies clothed in sealskin sacques
and full sets of urs, likewise going from
house to house asking contributions with
which to senu bibles to the heather be-
yond the sea, called foreign missions.
They may meet the little wretched,
shivering, supplicatlng mendlcant whose
hovel of want is not two blocks
away, but they see him not; taeir eyes
are riveted upon far distant India and
Africa. They may pass the huts where
the sick mothers tears of hopeless despair
run like torrents from her eyes, but they
notice it not; their hearts are away be-
yond the sea on the banks of the Ganges
intercepting the Hindoe mother as she
c'mes to offer her child sacrifice to the
crocodile as religious duty.
The bible is good book, but it will
not satisfy the cravings of hunger nor
modify the temperature of winter winds
There IS more gospel and good influence
in load of coal or sack of flour to a
destitute family than in carload of
bibles. 1t is grand and worthy enter
prise to give money to send spiritual food
to the heather and foreign lands, but it is
a grander thing to initiate the heather
Id mlnlsterlng to the temporal wants,
for food and raimcnt, of our own poor
first
Wnen the great multitude who assem-
bled about the Savior were an hungered.
He did not offer them bibles nor tracts
nor prayers, but substantial food. His
greatest blessing was pronounced upon
those who ministered to temporal wants.
These, he said, would receive the applau-
dit: "Come ye blessed of my Father
inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the yorld,' not
because of sending bibles to the heather
nor for contribution money for that pur-
pose, but His own words are "for l was
an hungercd, and ye gave me meat; l
was thirsty, and We gave me drink;
l was q stranger, and ye took me
IN; naked, and ye clothed me; was sick
and We visited me; was in prison, and
ye came unto me-" aud that mos. terrible
anathema and denunciatlon, depart
from me ye cursed, into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels" I"
was pronounced against those who failed
to do these things. The mission Of Christ
on earth was to teach people how to live,