The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1886-09-23

| found their sphere, and those who, havin 6
found it, are not willing to stay there
| How many are struggling for position
I 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.
wants to be the balancewheel, and the
sparrow with chagrin drops into the brook
because it can not, like the eagle, cut Q
! circle under the sun.
In the LORDS army we all want to be
! Brigadier- G Generals. The sloop says:
"More mast, more tonnage, more cam
vas. Oh, that were a topsail schooner,
! or a full-rigged brig, or Cunard steam-
err"
And so the world is flied with cries OF
| discomfort because we are not willing to
| stay in the place where God put us and in
tended us to be. My frien S, be not too
proud 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 Hagars and Ishmaels. God has given
each Of us a work to do. You carry a
scuttle of coal up that dark alley.
You distribute that Christian tract. You
give ten thousand dollars to the mission.
ary cause. You for fifteen years sit
with chronic rheumatism, displaying the
| beauty of Christian submission. What
ever God calls you to, whether 1t win
Kissing or huzza; whether to walk under
| triumphal arch or lift the sot out of the
ditch; whether it be to preach on 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 laughing child on a spring
morning and call her May queen, or to
! comb out the tangled locks Of watf OF
! the street, and cut up one Of your old
dresses to fit her out for the sanctuary
do it, and do it right away. Whether it
be a crown or yoke, do not fidget Ever
lasting honors upon those who do their
work. and do their whole work, and are
contented in the sphere in which God has
put them; while there is wandering, and
exile, and desolation, and wilderness for
disconnected Hagar and Ishmael.
| O. 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
| Hagarl There was the tent and all the
surroundings of Abraham's house, beauti-
full and luxurious, no doubt. Now she is
| going out into the hot sands of the des-
ert. Oh, what a change it was! And in
one day 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-plenty at the
table, music in the drawing
room, welcome at the door, She is led
forth into life by some one who can not
appreciate her. A dissipated soul comes
and takes her out into the desert. Cruel
ties blot out all the lights Of that home
,ircle. Harsh words wear out her spirits.
The high hope that shone out over the
marriage altar while the ring was being
| set, and the VOWS given, and the benedic-
ion pronounced, have all faded with the
orange blossoms, and there she is to-day,
broken hearted, thinking of past joys, and
present desolation, and coming anguish.
Hagar in the wildernessl
Here is beautiful home You can not
hfnk Of any thing that can be added to
IT, For years there has not been the sug-
gestion of a single trouble. Bright and
happy children fill the house with laugh.
ter and song. Books to read. Pictures tc
| look at. Lounges to rest on. Cup OF do
| mestic joy full and running over. Dark
night drops. Pillow hot. Pulses futter
Eyes close. And the foot whose well known
steps on the door-sill brought the whole
household out at eventide, crying: "Fath-
er's coming," will never sound on the
door. sill again. A long, deep grief plowed
through all that brightness Of domestic
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
ing, 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 sprinked on the infants face the
washin~s of holy baptism. Her name is
changed now. / hear it in the shuttle of
the worn -out shoes. l see 1t in the figure
of the faded calico. find it in the Inca
ments of woebegone countenance. Not
Mary, nor Bertha, nor Agnes, but Hagar
in the wilderness. My God have mercy
upon woman in her tolls, her strugg ,es,
her hardships, her desolation, and may
the great heart of divine sympathy inclose
her foreverl
3. Again,tI fiend in this Oriental scene
the fact that every mother leads forth tre
mendous destinies. You say:
"That isn't an unusual scene, mother
leading her child by the hand"
Who is that she is leading2 Ishmael,
you say. Who is Ishmaelp great ma
tion is to be founded; nation so strong
that it is to stand for thousands of years
against all the armies of the world.
Egypt and Assyria thunder against, 1t
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 long while that
nation monopolized the learning of the
world. It is the nation Of the Arabs Who
founded iti Ishmael, the lad that Hagar
led into 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. Il 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-struckp That wound in the foot de-
cides that he be sedentary in his life, de-
cides that he be a student. That wound