The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1886-07-28
Sunday-School Lessons.
DARKENED WAYS.
Earthly Losses and Affections -"Out of
Shadow into Sunlight"

Earthly Losses and Affections -"Out of
Shadow into Sunlight"
Many of Gods ''dear children" have
occasion to exclaim with Job: HE
hath set darkness in my paths" vari-
Gus trials of life are as darkness. Such
are privations and losses. in not a few
instances. Thereby many an earthly
way is made exceedingly dark. The
abodes of poverty are often far from be-
ing sunny, even though religion may
have place there. Those who are
not permitted to enjoy worldly pros
perity know full well what it is to
walk IN more or less of darkness. And
it is all the more dark to be reduced to
a needy condition after having seen
better days. The trial of being no
longer in circumstances of pecuniary
independence, after years of that en-
joyment, rightly claims much sympa-
thy. In the transition from opulence
or competence to indigence is found
one of the dark passages of life. Job,
in being stripped of all his secular
abundance, was so bewildered in the
darkness of his adversely that he was
but barely kept from reproaching
God. And to multitudes since the
days of Job the world has
been made dreary and gloomy
they have sustained. Those who have
had no such adverse experience can
hardly realize how dismal their way in
life would seem if they were deprived
of all their temporal possessions as
sources of enjoyment and usefulness.
They can not imagine how dark it would
seem to be reduced from having enough
to having nothing. Then they might
know, as they can not now, that the
obstruction of the poor is their pow
erty."
Life is full of changes that greatly
affect the enjoyments Of the living, and
turn their day into night. The loss of
property is not the only earthly loss
experienced in connection with these
changes. In the loss of friends more
may be lost than in any thing else that
can be taken away. The light of many
home is put out, and all is shrouded
in darkness there when some loved one
is borne away to the grave. Often the
hand that sunders the heart-ties of life,
and separates for all time loving and low
abe ones, as it were, shuts up the win
dows of the soul so that no sunlight can,
for q season, find its way into the dark
ened recesses of the sorrowing heart.
Who has not again and again witnessed
scenes of deeply affective bereavement
which have changed midday into mid
night in some circle of friends, and
caused such darkness as years will not
wholly, if considerably, remover Many
never entirely recover from the heart
heaviness caused by their bereavements,
the shadows of which rest permanently
upon their hearts. To them the SUI,
never shines so brightly again. Many a
heart and many home are never light
again after the going down of the sun of
Joy and hope into the darkness of the
grave that received some near and dear
one. The bereaved mourner can only
say: "Himself hath done it; shall go
softly all my years in the bitterness of
my SOUL" In the removal of a parent
or q child. a husband or wife. broth
er or sister, by death, there has often
been cloud of grief covering the scene
of bereavement which might well be
described by that Egyptian calamity
when ''there was thick darkness in
oil the land of Egypt three days"
Public calamity surrounds people
with darkness when war and famine
and pestilence spread devastation and
CONSERVATION over a country or a conf
munity; and when catastrophes are
multiplied on land and sea, or railways
and rivers, in towns and cities, with
appalling loss of life and stupendous
destruction of property, as in frequent
disasters to steamships and sailing ves-
sells, and in numerous railroad acci-
dents, as well as in terrible conflagra-
tions and inundations desolating popu-
lous sections of country. Such destruct-
i've visitations as are painfully familiar
to our minds are as darkness almost
without light, reminding us of what
was said concerning the threatened in
vasion of Judah by the Assyrian arm.
and behold trouble and darkness, dim
ness and anguish; and they shall be
driven to darkness. There have.
again and again, been sorrowful
times, locally or generally, if moi
universally, when 1t has almost
seemed as though the threatened doom
of Egypt could be appropriated. In
which 1t was said: Gan the brigh,
lights of Heaven will ! make dark over
thee, and set darkness upon thy land
saith the Lord God" As calamities
spread around, those upon whom they
fall may be numbered with the troubled
and distressed who walk in darkness
and to whom, apparently. there may
soon be mo light" To many such
however, it has been a. light In dark
ness to hear voice from Heaven, say
ing: The eternal God is thy refuge
and underneath are the everlasting
arms" Walking BY faith and not b!