Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1886-07-03

ing IT. He has not only the cargo but
the ship. If it were necessary lie
would swing out from the heavens a
flock of ravens reaching from His gate
to yours, until the food would be flung
down the sky from beak to beak and
from talon to talon.
Notice again in this story of the text,
that the ravens did not allow Elijah to
hoard up a surplus. They did not
bring enough on Monday to last all
week. They did not bring enough n
morning to last until the next morn
ing. They came twice n day and
brought just enough for n time. Yon
know as well as |, that the great fret
Of the world is that we want a surplus
we want the ravens to bring enough
for fifty years. You have more conf
dence In the Fulton bank or Nassau
bank or Bank of England than you
have in the
ROYAL BANK OF HEAVEN.
You say: ..All that is very poetic,
but you may have the black ravens;
give me the gold eagles We had
better be content with just enough. If
in the morning your family eat up all
the food there is in the house,
do not sit down and cry and say:
II don't know where the next meal
is to come from About five or six
or seven o'clock in the morning, just
look up and you will see two black
spots on the sky, and you will hear the
tapping of wings, and instead of Edgar
A. Poe's insane raven alighting on the
chamber door, ''only this and nothing
more" you will find Elijah's two
ravens, or the two ravens Of the Lord,
the one bringing bread and the other
bringing meat-plumed butcher and
baker.
God is infinite in resource. When
the city of Rochelle was besieged and
the inhabitants were dying of the fam
inc, and the tides washed up on the
beach rs never before. and as never
since, enough shell fish to feed the
whole city. God is good. There is
no mistake about that. History tells
us that in 1856 in England there was a
great drought. The crops failed, but
in Essex, on the rocks. in a place
where they had Meth, r sown nor cul-
tured, a great crop of peas grew until
they filled a hundred measures; and
there were ~blossoming vines enough,
promising as much more.
But why 60 so far? can give you a
family incident. Some generations
back there was a great drought in Con-
necticut, New England. The water dis
appeared from the hills, and the farm
ers living on the hills drove their cattle
down toward the valleys. and had them
supplied at the wells aud fountains of
the neighbors. But these after a while
began to fail, and the neighbors said to
Mr.. Birdseye, OF whom l shall speak:
you must not send your nocks and
herds down here any more, our wells
are giving out" Mr.. Birdseye, the
old Christian man, gathered his family
at the altar, and with his family he
gathered the slaves of the household
for bondage was then in vogue in Con-
necticut-and on their knees before
God they cried for water; and the fam
lily story is, that there was weeping and
great sobbing at that altar that the family
might not perish for lack of water, and
that the herds and hocks might not per-
ish. The family rose from the altar.
Mr.. Birdseye, the old man, took his
staff and walked out over the hills, and
in a place where he had been scores OF
times without noticing anything par
t%icular, he saw the ground was very
dark, and he took his staff and turned
up the ground, and water started; and
he beckoned to his servants, and they
came and they brought pals and buck
cts until all the family and all the hocks
and the herds were cared fer, and then
they made troughs reaching from that
place down to the house and barn, and
the water flowed and it is a
LIVING FOUNTAIN TO-DAY.
Now, l call that old grandfather,
Elijah, and | call that brook that began
to roll then, and is rolling still, the
brook Cherith; and the lesson to me
and to all who hear it, is, when you
are in great stress of circumstance
pray and dig, dig and pray, and pray
and dig. How does that passage goe
1.-The mountains shall depart and the
hills be removed, but my loving-kind-
ness shall not fail If your merchan-
disc, if your mechanism, if your hus-
bandry fail, look out for ravens. If
you have in your dependency put God
on trial and condemned him as guilty
of cruelty, l move this morning for a
new trial. If the biography OF your
life is ever written. | will tell you what
the first chapter and the middle chap
ter and the last chapter will be about,
if it is written accurately. The first
chapter about mercy, the middle chap
ter about mercy, the last chapter about
mercy. The mercy that lowered over
your cradle. The mercy that will hover
over your grave. The mercy that will
cover all between.
Again, this story of the text i'm
presses me that relief came to this
prophet with the most unexpected and
with seemingly impossible conveyance.
IL it had been a robin-red-
breast or a musical meadow
lark or a meek turtle dove or a sub
lime .lbatross that had brought tie
food to Elijah, it would not have been