The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1886-09-23

found II, are not willing to stay there,
How many ars struggling for a position
little higher than that for which God In
tended them. The bondswoman wants to
be mistress. Hager keeps crowding Sarah.
The small wheel Of watch which beauti-
fully went treading its golden pathway,
wants to be the balance wheel, and the
sparrow with chagrin drops into the brook
because it can not, like the eagle, cut 3
circle under the sun,
I'm the Lords army we all want to be
Brigadier Generals. The sloop says:
more mast, more tonnage, more CAM
vas. oh, that were a topsail schooner,
or a full-riggsd brig, or 8 Cunard stoam-
err"
And so the world is filed with cries OF
discomfort because we are not willing to
stay in the place where God put US and in
tended us tc be. My frien Is, be not too
pruCd to do any thing God tells you to do.
For the lack of right disposition in this
respect the world is strewn with wander
ing HaCars and Ishmaels. God has given
each of us work to do. You carry
scuttle of coal up that dark alley.
You distribute that Christian tract. You
give ten thousand dollars to the missions
arv cause. You for fifteen years sit
with chronic rheumatism, displaying the
beauty Of Christian submission. What
ever God calls YOU to, whether it win
kissing O. huzzl; whether to walk under
triUmphal arch or lift the sot out of the
ditch: whether it he to preach on a pen-
tecost or tell some wanderer Of the street
of the mercy of the Christ, or Of Mary
Magdalene, whether it be to weave gar
land for a laughing child on spring
morning and call her a May queen, or 10
comb out the tangled locks Of q wait Of
the street, and cut up one of your old
dresses TO ri her out for the sanctuary
do it, and do it right away. Whether it
he a crown or yoke, do not fidget. Ever
| lasting honors upon those who do their
| work, and do their whole work, and are
c5ntentcd in the sphere in which God has
| pat them; while there is wandering, and
| exile, aud desolation, and Wilderness for
| di.ccntenteI Hagar and Ishmael.
.. Again, find in this Oriental scene a
| lesson Of sympathy with woman when
she goes forth trudging in the desert.
( What a great change it was for this
| HaGar! There was the tent and all the
! surroundings of Abraham's house. heautt-
! fu, and luxurious, no doubt. Now she is
| going oat into the hot sands of the dos
ert. Oh, what a change it was. And in
| one dav we often see the wheel Of fortune
| turn. Here is some one who lived in the
very bright home of her father She
had every thing possible TO admin
ter TO her happiness-penty at the
table, music in the draw ing
room. welcome at the door. She is led
forth into life by some one who can net
app; cciatc her. A dis'ipatcd soul comes
and takes her out into the desert C:ucl-
ties blot ont all the lights oi tGGt home
circle Harsh words wear out her spiri. 5.
Tie high hope that shone out over the
marriage altar while the inc was icing
set, and the vows given, and the nellie
ton pronounced, have all faded with the
orange blossoms, AMI there she is to-day,
broken-heartcd thinking of past joys, and
present desoiation, and coming anguish
Hagar in the wilderness!
Here is beautiful home. You can not
thinA of any thing that can be added to
Il. For years there has not been the sug-
cestion of a single trouble. Bright and
happy children fill the house with laugh
| ter and song. Books to read. Pictures t.
| look at. Lounges to rest on. Cup OF do
nestle joy full and running over. Dark
night drops. Pillow hot. Pulses hu,ter.
| Eyes close. And the foot whose we'll known
| steps on the door-sill brought the whole
| household out at eventide, crying: Faith
er's coming" will never sound on the
door sill again A long, deep grief plowed
hot Iri Of 4 fir
life. Paradise lost. Widowhood. Hagar
in the Wilderness.
How often is it we see the weak arm OF
woman cOnscripted for this battle with
the rough world. Who is she, going down
the street in the early light of the morn
inc, pale with exhausting work, not half
slept out with the slumbers of last night,
tragedies of suffering written all over her
face, her lusterleSs eyes looking far ahead,
as though for the coming of some other
trouble? Her parents called her Mary. or
Bertha, or Agnes, on the day when they
held her up to the font and the Christian
minister sprinkled on the infants face the
washngs of holy baptism. Her name is
changed now. l hear it in the shuttle of
the worn out shoes. l see it in the figure
ments of woebegone countenance. Not
Mary, nor Bertha, nor. Agnes, but Hagar
in the wilderness. May God have mercy
upon woman in her tolls, her strugg tes,
her hardships, her desolation, and may
the great heart of divine sympathy inclose
her forever
3. Again, flend in this Oriental scene
the fact that every mother leads forth ire
mendous destinies. You say:
THAT isn't an unusual scene, mother
leading her child by the hand"
Who is that she is leading? Ishmael,
YOU say. Who is Ishmael? A great ma
ton is to be founded; a nation so strong
that it is to stand for thousands of years
against all the armies of the world.
Egypt and Assyria thunder against, it
but in vain. Gaulus brings up his army,
and his army is smitten. Alexander
decides upon a campaign, brings up his
hosts. and dies. For a long while that
nation monopolized the learning of the
world. 1t is the nation of the Arabs. Who
founded it? Ishmael, the lad that Hagar
led to the wilderness. She had no idea
she was leading forth such destinies.
Neither does any mother. You pass along
the street and see and pass boys and girls
who will yet make the earth quake with
their influence. . Who is that boy at
Sutton Pool, Plymouth, England, bare
footed, wading down into the slush and
slime, until his bare foot comes upon
piece of glass and he lifts 1t, bleeding and
pain struck? That wound in the foot de-
! cides that he be sedentary in his life, de-
cides that he be a student. That wound