The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1888-06-01

tet many OF them Hye on MOUNTAINS o.
TRANSPORTATION At their rough table BE
who fed the 1--WE thousand breaks the bread.
They talk often Of the good times that are
coming. This world has no charm for them,
but heaven entrances their spirit They
often divide their scant crust with some for
lorn wretch who knocks at their dspr at
night, and on tho blast Of the night wind, a.
the door opens to let them In, q heard the
voice of Him who said: ~ was hungry and
ye fed me." No cohort of heaven viii be too
bright to transport them. By Gods help
they have vanquished tho Aasyrian host
They have divided amoug them the spoiA
Lame, lame, yet they took the prey.
l was riding along the country road one
day, and l saw q man on crutcheA over.
took him. He was very old. He was going
very slowly. At that rate IL would have
taken him two hours to go a mile. said;
"Wouldnt you iii to rider He said:
''Thank you, I would God bless YOU
When he sat beside me be said: "You see, !
am very anne and very old, but the Lord has
been a good Lord to me-. I nave buried all
my children. The Lord gave them and the
Lord had a right to take them away. Blessed
be his name. was very sick and I had no
money, and my neighbors came In and took
~ Va LnCt ALI ! WdlOcu uObuulKs i BULLET
o great deal with pain, but then I have 80
many mercies left. The Lord has been a
good Lord to me-" And before we had got
far ! was in doubt whether / was giving him
a ride or he was giving me a ridei he said:
Snow, II you please, I'll get out here. Just help
me down on my crutches, IL you please. God
bless you. Thank you, sir. Good morning.
Good morning. You ave been feet to the
la.nA o4a kA- o. -~--l--n
Swarthy men had gone the road that day.
l do not know where they came out, but
every hobbIe Of that old mar was toward
the shining gate. With his old crutch he
had struck down many a Sennacherib of
temptation which has mastered you and me.
Lame, so fearfully lame, SO awfully lame:
but he took the prey.
A step further. There are In all communi-
ties many orphans. During our last war and
in the years immediately following, how
many children we heard say: 'Ohi my
father was killed In the war; Have you
ever noticed-I fear you have not-how well
those children have turned QUIT Starting
under the greatest disadvantage, no orphan
asylum could do for them what their father
would a done had he lived. The skr-
misher sat n night by the light Of fagots
In the swamp, writing a letter home, when q
sh~arpshooteris bullet ended the letter, which
was never folded, never posted and new
read
Those children came up under great disad-
vantages. 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's fathers long march
and how he suffered in the hospital; but they
lOnHod still furfhor an IN tho nihlo 90 49,
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 Incidence 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 do good. They say: "Ohi If I only
high social position, how much I would &C
compl:sh for God and the churchr' l stand
here today to tell you that you lave great
SpHOA IA uOC1uA1lCco.
Who built the Pyramidsi The king who
ordered them built No; the plain workmen
who added stone after stone and stone after
stone. Who built the bikes Of Hollandi The
government that ordered the enterpriseG
No; the plain workmen who carried the
earth and rung their trowel on the wall
Who are those who have built these vast
citiesi The capitalistsi No; the carpenters,
tho nnocOns tho plrrp,hoHc tia rloeka~o~o A.
timers, the roofers dependent on q DAYS
wages for a livelihood. And so in the great
work of aSsnaging human suffering and en-
tightening human ignorance and halting hui
man iniquity. In that great work the chief
part is to be done by ordinary men, with or
binary speech, in an ordinary manner and by
ordinary means. The trouble is that In the
army Of Christ we all want to be captains
and colonies and brigadier generals. We are
not 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 camp fires or on furlough at home, our
feet upon IN ottoman, we sagging back into
an armchair
As you go down the street, you see an ex-
cavation and four or five men are working,
and perhaps twenty or thirty leaning on the
rail looking over at them. That Is the way
it is in the church of God today; where you
find one Christian hard at work, there are
fifty men watching the job.
Oil my friends, why do you not go to
work and preach this Gospel You say: "I
have no pulpit" You have It may 10 the
carpenters bench, It may be the mason's
wall. The robe in which you are to proclaim
this Gospel may be q shoemaker's apron. But
woe unto you if you preach not this Gospel
somewhere, somehow If this world Is ever
brought to Christ, it will be through the unan-
imous and long continued efforts of men
who, waiting for no special endowment, con-
secrate to God what they have. Among the
most useless people in the world are men with
ten talents, while many a one with only two
talents, or no talent ut all, is doing a great
work, and so 1.-THE anne tax the prey"
There are thousands Of ministers Of whom
you have never heard-in log cabins at the
west, in mission chapels at the east-who are
warning against the legions of darkness-suc-
c~essfully 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 heard
In the palaces of heaven. Who are the
workers In our sabbath schools throughout
this land todayf Men celebrated, nun bril-
liant, men OF vast estatesi For the most part,
not that at all | have noticed that the
chief characteristic Of most Of those
who are successful Ia the work Is
that they INC their Bibles, We earnest In
prayer, are anxious for the salvation Of the
young, and Sabbath by Sabbath are willing
to sit down unobserved and tell OF Christ and
the resurrection. These are the humble
workers who are recruiting the great army
OF Christian youth mot by might, not by
power, not by profound argument. not by
brilliant antithesis, but by the blessing Of
God on plain talk, and humble story, and
silent tear, and anxious look. 'The lame
take the prey"
Oil this work of saving the youth Of our
c~ountry-how few appreciate what 1t Isl
This generation tramping ON the grave-we
will soon all be gone What nextf
An engineer on a locomotive going across
the western prairies day after day. saw q
little child come out In front of a cabin and
wave to him; so he got in the habit Of wav
ing back to the little child, and It was the
days joy to him to see this little one come
out In front of the cabin door and wave to
him, while he answered back.
One day the train was belated and Il came
on to the dusk Of the evening. As the engt-
neer stood at his post he saw by the head
light that little girl on the track, wondering
why the train did not come. looking for the
train, knowing nothing Of it's peril A great
horror seized upon the engineer. BE re-
versed the engine He gave It In charge
Of the other man on board, and then he
climbed over the engine and he came down
on the cowcatcher He said, though he had
reversed the engine, 1t seemed as though Il
were going at lightning speed, faster aud
faster, though It was really slowing up, and
with almost supernatural clutch he caught