The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1886-10-07

leg, and was about to proceed to amputa'
tton, when the poor man leaped from tho
table and hobbled to the door, and said:
Gentlemen, am sorry to disappoint
you, but, by the help Of God, / will die
with my leg on"
What terrific loss Is the loss Of our
physical facultiesl
The way the battle OF Crecy was decided
against the French was by the Welshmen
killing the French horses, and that
brought their riders to the ground. And
when you cripple this body, which is
merely the animal on which the soul
rides, YOU may sometimes defeat the soul.
Yet, how many suffer from this physi-
cal taking off Good cheer, my brother
God will make it up to you somehow.
The grace, the sympathy Of God will be
more to you than any thing you have lost.
If God allows part Of your resources to be
cut Off in one place, He will add 1t on
somewhere else. AS Augustus, the EN-
peror, took off day from February, maxi
ing it the shortest month in the year, and
added it to August, the month named af-
ter himself, so advantages taken from one
part of your nature will be added ON to
another.
But it Is amazing how much of the
worlds work has been done by men Of
subtracted physical organization. S. S.
Preston, the great orator of the South
west, went limping all his life, but there
was no foot put down upon any platform
of his day that resounded so far as his
club foot. Beethoven was so deaf that he
could not hear the crash Of the orchestra
rendering his oratorios. Thomas Carlyle,
the dyspeptic martyr, was given the COM
mission to drive cant out Of the worlds
literature. Rev. Thomas Stockton, of Phil
adelphia, with one lung raised his audi
ence nearer Heaven than most ministers
can raise them with two lungs. In the
banks, the in urance companies, the COM
mercGl establishments, the reformatory
associations, the churches, there are tens
Of thousands of men and women to-day
doubled up Of rheumatisms or subject to
ueuralgias, or with only fragments Of
limbs, the rest of which they left at Chat
tanooga, or South Mountain, or the Will
derness, and they are worth more to the
world, and more to the church, and more
to God than those Of us who have never so
much as had finger joint stifFened by a
felon. Put to full use all the faculties
that remain, and charge ON all opposing
circumstances with the determination Of
John Of Bohemia, who was totally blind,
and yet at battle cried out:
81 pray and beseech you to lead me 50
far into the fight that l may strike one
good blow with this sword of mine"
Do not think so much of what faculties
you have lost as of what faculties remain.
You have enough left to make yourself
felt in three worlds, while you help the
earth, and balk hell, and win Heaven.
Arise from your discouragements, oh men
and women of deple ted or crippled physi-
cal faculties, and see what, by the special
help of God, you can accomplish!
The skilled horsemen stood around Bu-
cephalus, unable to mount or manage him,
so wild was the steed. But Alexander
clutched him by the bride and turned his
head away from the shadow and towards
the sun, and the horses agitation was
gone, and Alexander mounted him and
rode off, to the astonishment of all who
stood by. And what you people need s
to have your sight turned away from the
shadow of your early lot over which you
have so long pondered, and your head
turned toward the sun-the glorious sun
of gospel consolation and Christian hope
and spiritual triumph.
And then remember that all the physical
disadvantages will after awhile vanish.
Let those who have been rheumatlsmed
out of foot, or cataracted out of an eye,
or by the perpetual roar of our cities thun-
dered out of an ear, look forward to the
day when this old tenement house
Of flesh will come down and a bet
ter one shall be builded. The resurrec-
tion morning will provide you with bet
ter outfit. Either the unstrung, worn out,
blunted and crippled organs will be so re-
constructed that you will not know them,
or an entire new set of eyes, and ears and
feet will be given you. Just what it means
by corruption putting on interruption
do not know, save that it will be glory in
effable; no limping in Heaven, no strain
ing of the eye-sight to see things little
way off; no putting of the hand behind
the ear to double the capacity of the tym-
panum; but faculties perfect, all the keys
of the instrument attuned for the sweep of
the fingers of costa y. But until that day
of resurrection comes let us bear each
others burdens and SO fulfill the law OF
Christ.
3. Another form of disadvantage under
which many la or is lack of early educa-
ton. There will be no excuse for ignor-
ance in the next generation. Free schools
and illimitable opportunity of education
will make ignorance crime. / believe IN
compulsory education, and those persons
who neglect to put their children under
educational advantages have but one right
left, and that is the penitcntiary. But
there are multitudes of men and women
in middle life who have had no oppor-
tunity. Free schools had not yet been es.
tablished, and vast multitudes had little
or no school at all. They feel it when, as
Christian men, they come to speak
or pray in religious assemblies or
public occasions, patriotic, or po-
li:ical, or educational. They are
silent, because they do not feel compe-
tent. They owe nothing to English gram
mar, or geography or bellies letters. They
would not know participle from a pro-
noun II they met it many times a day.
Many of tie most successful merchants Of
America, and men in high political places,
can not write an accurate letter on any
theme. They are completely dependent
upon clerks and deputies and stenograph-
ers to make things right. knew liter
ary man who, in other years, in Washing
ton, made his fortune by writing speeches
for Congressman, or fixing them up for
the Congressional Record after they were
delivered. The millionaire illiteracy of
this country is beyond measurement.
Now, suppose a man finds himself In
midlife without education, what is he to
doP Do the best he can. The most ef-