Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-10-29

refuge anu strength,
Come, let US measure Nicholas around
the head. AS many inches of brain as any
other intelligent man. Let us measure
him around the heart. 1t is SO large 1t
takes in all the heavens. Measure him
around the purse. He has more resources
than nine tenths of those who on that Sep
TENDER day came in on my of the railroads
from north or south, or east or west.
But that Sabbath afternoon, while in the
back room, Nicholas and his father are
talking over any attempt at the reclama-
ton of Edward, there is q ringing of the
door-bcll and a man with the uniform OF
policeman stands there, and a man with
some embarrassment, and some halting,
fight in some low haunt of the city Edward
had been hurt He says to Nicholas: II
heard that he was some relation of yours,
and thought you ought to know it"
"Hurt? Is he badly hurt!"
eyes, very badly hurt"
"Is the wound mortal?"
eyes, it is mortal To tell you the whole
truth, sir, says the policeman, although
can hardly bear TO tell you, he is Dead"
"Dead!" cries Nicholas. And by this
time the whole family are in the hallway.
The father says: Gust as feared. twill
kill his mother when she hears of it. Oh,
my son! my son! Would TO God had
died for the! Oh. my son! my son!"
"Wash off the Wounds" says Nicholas,
"and bring him right here to my house,
and let there be all respect and gentleness
shown him. II is the last we can do for
him."
Oh, what obscquies! The next-door
neighbors hardly knew what was going on,
but Nicholas and the father and mother
knew. Out of the Christian and beautiful
home of the one brother is carried the des-
solute brother. No word of blame uttered.
No harsh things said. On a bank of
camellas is spelled out the word Brother"
Had the prodigal been true and pure.and
noble in life and honorable in death he
could not have been carried forth with
more tenderness, or slept in a more beauti-
full casket, or been deposited in q more
beautiful garden of the dead. Amid the
loosened turf the brothers who left the
country for city life five years before,
now parted forever. The last scene of the
fifth act of al awful tragedy of human
life is ended.
What made the difference between these
two young men? Religion. The one de-
pended upon himself, the other depended
upon God. They started from the same
home, and the same opportunities of edu-
cation, arrived in the city on the same day,
and if there was any difference Edward
had the advantage. for he was brighter and
quicker, and all the neighbors prophesied
greater success for him than for Nicholas.
But behold and wonder at the tremendous
secret. Voices come up out of this audi
brothers?" eyes; knew them WE'LL" "Did
you know their parents?" Eyes; init
mately." What was the city, what the
street, what the last name OF these Young
men? You have excited our curiosity:
now tell us all.
/ Twill. Nothing in these characters is
fictitious except the names. They are in
every city, and in every street of every city,
and in every country. Not two of them,
but ten Thousand. Aye, aye! Right before
me to-day. and on either side of me, and
above me, they sit and stand, the invulner-
able through religious defense and the
blasted of city allurements. Those who
shall have longevity in beautiful homes,
infamy. And I am here to-day in the
name Of Almighty God to give you the
choice of the two characters, the two
histories. the two experiences, the two
destinies, the two worlds, the two eterni-
ties.
Standing with you at the forks of the
road something makes me think that if to-
day set before the people the termini of
the two roads they will all of them take the
right one. There are before me in this
house and in the invisible audience back of
this-for journalism has generally given
me me every week full opportunity to address
Christendom-I say, in the visible and
invisible audience there are many who
have not fully made up their minds which
road to take. "Come with us' cry all the
voices of righteousness. "Come with us!"
cry all the voices of SIM
Now, the trouble is that many make dis
graceful surrender. AS we all know, there
is honorable and dignified surrender, as
when small host yields to superior num-
bers. 1t is no humiliation for thousand
men to yield to ten thousand. 1t is better
than to keep on when there can be no re-
suit except that of massacre. But those
VINO surrender to sin make surrender
When on their side they have enough re-
serve forces to rout all the armies Of per
dition, whether led on by what a demon
ographer calls Bellal, or Beelzebub, or
Apollyon, or Abaddon, or Ariel. The dis
graceful thing about the surrenderat Sedan
was that the French handed over 419 field
guns and mitrailleuses, 5000 horses, and
$4,000 armed men. And it is base for that
man to surrender to sin when all the
armaments of almightiness would have
wheeled TO the front to fight his battle if
he had waved one earnest signal. But no!
lie surrendered body, mind, soul, reputa-
ton, home, pedigree, time, and eternity,
while yet all the prayers of his Christian
ancestors were on his side and all the
protfered aid-supernal, cherubic, seraphic.
angelic, deific.
We have talked SO much the last few
weeks about the abdication of Alexander
OF Bulgaria, but what paltry throne was
that from which the unhappy king de-
scended compared with the abdicaticn of
that young man. or middle-aged man. or
old man, who quits the throne of his op-
portunity and turns his back upon a
heavenly throne. and tramps of! into
lgnominy and everlasting exile. That is
an abdlcation enough to shake the universe.
In Persia they will not have blind man
on the throne, and when igning monarch
is jealous of some ambitious relative he
has his eyes extinguished so that he cannot
possibly ever come to browning. And that
suggests the difference between the way
sin and divine grace takes hold of a man.
The former blinds him so he NAV never
reach throne, while the latter illumines
the bind that he mnv ,l.o