The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1888-05-29

Yet many of them live on mountains of
TRANSPORTATION. At their rough table He who
led the five 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 forlorn
wretch who knocks at their door at night, and
on the blast of the night wind, as the door
opens to let thcm in, is heard the voice Of Him
who said: II was hungry and We fed me-" No
cohort OF Heaven will be too bright to TRANSPORT
them. BY Gods help them have vanquished
the Asyrian host They have divided among
the spoils Lame, lame, yet they took the
prey.
l was riding along the country road one day,
and saw man on crutches. l overlook him.
He was very old. He was going very slowly.
hours to 20 mile. l said: "Wouldn't you
like to ride?" He said: THANK YOU, |
would. God bless YOU" When he sat beside
me, he said: you see, am very lame and
very old, but the Lord has been good Lord to
me- | have buried all my children. The Lord
gave them, and the Lord had right to take
them away. Blessed be His name. Twas very
sick, and had no money, and my neighboys
came in and took care of me, and / wanted
nothing. l suffer a great deal with pain.
but then l have so many mercies
left, The Lord has been good
Lord TO me-" And before we had got far,
was in doubt whether 1 was giving him a ride
or he was giving me ride! He said: Nov,
L
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. 1 do not
know where they came out. but every hobbie
of that old man was toward the shining gate
With his old crutch he had struck down many
Sennacherib of temptation which has mas
tered you and me. Lame, so fearfully lanes
so awfully lame; but he took the prey.
A stan further. fTharn i'm all nop,p,,,-
mites many orphans. During our last war and
in the years Immediately following, how many
children we heard say: ooh! my father was
killed in the war" Have you ever noticed
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 skirmisher sat one night by
the light of fagots in the swamp, writing
letter home, when a sharpshooters bullet
ended the letter which was never folded,
never posted, and 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 IL the hospital; but they
looked still further on in the Bible, and they
came to the story OF how God is the Father of
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
these who started under SO many disadvan-
tages 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 ooh! if l only
had wealth, or If had eloquence, or if had
high social position, how much | would accom-
plish for God and the church," 1 stand here
today to tell you that you have great opportu-
mites for usefulness.
Who built the pyram;ds2 The king who
ordered them built? No; the plain workmen
who added stone after stone and stone after
stone. Who built the bikes of Holland? The
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,
the masons, the plumbers, the plasterers the tin
for a livelihood. And so in the great work of
assauging human suffering and enlightening
human ignorance and halting human Iniquty.
In that great work, the chief part is to be done
by ordinary men, with ordinary 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
soldier. We want to belong to the reserve
corps, and read about the battle while warm
ing ourselves at the camp fires, or on furlough
at home, our feet upon an 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
Oh my friends, why do you not 90 to work
and preach this gospel? You say, II have no
pulpit" You have. 1t may be the carpen-
ter's 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 unanimous and
long continued efforts of men who, waiting for
no special endowment, consecrate to God
what they have. Among the most useless
people in the world are men with ten talents
while many one with only two talents, or no
talent at all, is doing q great work, and so
"the lame take the prey"
There are thousands of ministers of whom
you have never heard--in log cabins at the
west, in mission chapels at the the east-who
are warning against the legions OF darkness,
successfully warning. Tract distributors,
month by month undermining 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
today? Men celebrated, men brilliant men
of vast estate. For the most part,
not that at all. L have noticed
that the chief Characteristic of
the most of those who are successful in tho
work is that they know their Bibles, are earn
est in prayer, are anxious for the salvation of
the young and Sabbath by Sabbath are will
ing 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-not 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"
Oh this work of saving the youth of our
country-how few appreciate what it is! This
generation tramping on to the graYe-we will
soon all be gone. What next?
An engineer on locomotive, going across
the western prairies day after day, saw little
child come out in front of a cabin and wave to
him; so lie got in the habit of waving 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 answer
cd back.
One day the train was belated, and
it came on TO the dusk Of the even
ing. AS the engineer stood at