Iuka reporter. (Iuka, Miss.) 1888-1894, 1888-06-14


/ was riding along the country road one
lay, and | saw man on crutches. l over
,ook him He was very old. He was going
very slowly. AT that rate it would
nave taken him two hours to 60 a
nile. ] said: "Wouldn't you like to
ride ~ He said: "Thank you, l would.
God bless you" When he sat beside me
he said: "Tou see am very lame and
very old, but the Lord has been a good Lord
to me. have buried all my children. The
Lord gave them and the Lord had right TO
take them away. Blessed he his name.
was very sick and / had no money, and my
neighbors came in and took care of me and
| wanted nothing. | suffer a great
deal with pain. but then have
has been a good Lord to me-" And be-
fore we had got far | was in doubt whether
was giving him a ride or he was giving me
a ridel He said: "Now, If you please, I'll get
out here. just help me down on my crutches,
If you please. God bless you. Thank you,
sir. Good morning. Good morning. You
have been feet to the lame, sir, you have.
Good morning." Swarthy men had gone the
road that day. / do not know where they
came out, but every hobble of that old man
was toward the shining gate With his old
crutch he had struck down many SEN
yonIand me- Lame, so fearfully lame, so aw-
fully lame; but he took the prey.
A step further: There are in all COM
munltleS many orphans During our last
war, and in the years Immediately following,
how many children we heard say: "Ohl my
father was killed in the war;" Have you ever
noticed-I fear you have not--how well those
children have turned out! Starting under the
greatest disadvantage, no orphan asylum
could do for them what their father would
have done had he lived. The sxirmisher sat
one night, by the light of fagots. in the
swamp, writing letter home, when sharp
shooters bullet ended the letter which was
never folded, never posted an never read.
Those children came up under great disad
vantage. No father to fight their way for
them. Perhaps there was in the old family
Bible an old yellow letter pasted fast, which
told the story of that fathers long march,
and how he suffered in the hospital; but they
| looked still further on in the Bible and they
came to the story of how God is the father OF
the fatherless, and the widows portion, and
they soon took their fathers place in that
household. They battled the way for their
mother. They came on up, and many Of
them have in the years since the war taken
positions in church and state. While many
of those who suffered nothing during those
times have had sons go out into lives of in
| dolence and vagabondage, those who started
under so many disadvantages because they
were so early bereft, these are the lame who
took the prey.
A step further: There are those who
would like to be good They say; ooh
it | only had wealth, or if l had elo
quence or if | had high social position
how much l would accomplish for God
and the church!n l stand here to-day to
tell You that you have great opportunities
for usefulness.
Who built the Pyramids The King who
ordered them built' No; the plain workmen
who added stone after stone and stone after
| STONE n htIi ba l. cofI In1I NJ
government that ordered the enterprise! No
the plain workmen who carried the earth
and rung their trowel on the wall. Who are
those who have built these vast cities
The capitalists? No; the carpenters. tn,
masons, the plumbers, the plasterers, the
tlnners, the roofers, dependent on a day'.
wages for livelihood. And so in the great
work of assuaging human suffering and en-
Tightening human ignorance and hating hu
man inquity. In that great work, the chic
part Is to be done by ordinary men, witt
ordinary speech, in an ordinary man
ner, and by ordinary means The
tronble IS that in the army of Chris
colonels and brighter generals. We are no,
willing to march with the rank and file and
to do duty with the private soldier. We
want to belong to the reserve corps, and read
about the battle while warming ourselves at
the campfres. or on furlough at home our
| an arm chair.
As you go down the street you see an
excavation, and four or five men are WORK.
ing, and perhaps twenty or ehrty leaning on
the rail and looking over at them That is
the way 1T is i'll the church of God to- day:
! where you find one Christian hard at worl,
there are fifty men watching the lob.
On! my friends. why do you not go to
work and preach this Gospel You say: II
have no pulpit" You have 1t may be the
carpenter's bench, it may be the mason's
wall The robe in which you are tc
proclaim this Gospel may be shoemaker
apron, But WOO unto you if you
preach not this Gospel somewhere, some
howl If this World is ever broucht
to Christ, it will be through the unanimous
and long continued efforts of men who.
waiting for no special endowment. conse
crate to Goi what they have. Among the
most useless people in the world are men with
| ten ia ents, while many one with only two
talents, or no talent at ALL is doing a great
WORK, and so the lame take the prey"
There are thousands of ministers of whom
you have never keard-in log cabins at the
West, in mission chapels at the East-whc
are warning against the legions of darkness
successfully warning. Tract distributors
month by month undermining the citadels
| of sin. You do not know their going or Their
coming; but the footballs of their ministry
are hear IN the palaces of heaven. Who
| arc bUe WOTkefS III our SaDDath schools
throughout this land to-daya Men cele
brated, men brilliant, men of vast es
tate' For the most part not that at all
| have noticed that the chief characters
| ties of the most of those who are success
full ir the work is that they know their
Bibles. are earnest in prayer, are anxious
for the salvation OF the young, and Sabbath
by Sabbath are wiling to sit down un
observed and tell of Christ and the resurrec.
ton. These are the humble workers who
are recruiting the great army of Christian
| youth not by might, not by power, not
by profound argument, not by brillian,
antithess, but by the blessing of God or
plain talk, and humble story, and silent
tear and anxious look. THE lame take the
| prev
OH this work of saving the youth of our
country-how few appreciate what it isl
This generation tramping on to the grave :
we Will soon all be gone. What next!
An engineer on locomotive going across
the western prairies day after day saw a
little child come out in front of a cabin and
wave to hin. so he got in the habit Of wav-
ing back to the little child, and it was the
days joy to him to see the little one come out
in front of the cabin door and wave to him,
while he answered back.
One day the train was belated it came on
to TIE dusk of the evening As the engineer
stood at his post he saw by the headlight that
little girl on the track, wondering WHY
the traiT did NOT cop,a 1ooly,pr