The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1888-08-23

climb; climb up into the sunlight OF
Gods favor and consolation. can go
through the churches and show you men
who lost fortune and health at the same
time, and yet who sing all day and
dream of heaven all night. II you have
any idea that sound digestion, and steady
nerves, and clear eyesight, and good
hearing, and plenty of friends are neces-
sary to make a man happy, you have
miscalculated. 1 suppose that these over
hanging rocks only made Jonathan
scramble the harder and the faster to get
up and out into the sunlight; and this
combined shadow of invahdism and
financial embarrassment has often sent
man up the quicker into the sunlight of
Gods favor and the monday of his
glorious promises. 1t is difficult
thing for man to feel his dependence
upon God when he has $4,000 in the
bank. and $4,000 in government securi-
ties, and block of stores and three
ships. "Well," the man says to him
self, sit is silly for me to pray, Give me
this day my daily bread, when my PAN
try is full, and the canals from the west
are crowded with breadstuffs destined
for my storehouses." Oh, my friends, if
the combined misfortunes and disasters
of life have made you climb up into the
arms of sympathetic and compassionate
God, through all eternity you will bless
him that in this world "there was
sharp rock on the one side, and sharp
rock on the other side"
Again, that man is in the crisis of the
| text who has home troubles and outside
persecution at the same time. The world
treats man well just as long as it pays
bes. to treat him well. AS long as it can
manufacture success out of his bone, and
brain, and muscle, it favors him. The
world fattens the horse it wants to drive.
But let man see it his duty to cross the
track of the world, then every bush is
full of horns and tusks thrust at him.
They will belittle him. They will carl
cature him. They will call his generos-
ity self aggrandizement, and his piety
sanctimoniousness. The very worst per-
secution will some time come upon him
from those who profess to be Christians.
John Milton-great and good John
Milton-so forgot himself as to pray, in
SO many words, that his enemies might
oe eternally thrown down into the dark
est and deepest gulf Of hell, and be the
undermost and most detected and the
lowest down vassals Of perdition! And
Martin Luther so far forgot himself as to
say, in regard to his theological oppon-
ents: sPut them ihwbatever sauce you
please, roasted, or fried, or baked, or
stewed, or boiled, or hashed, they are
nothing but asses!' All, my friends, if
John Milton or Martin Luther could
| b. rul,o 4
may you not expect from less
elevated opponentsa Now, the world
sometimes takes after them; the
newspapers take after them, public
opinion takes after them; and the unfor-
tunate man is lied about until all the
dictionary of Billingsgate is exhausted
on him. You often see a man whom
you know to be good, and pure, and
honest, set upon by the world, and
mauled by whole communities, while
vicious men take on supercilious air in
condemnation of him; as though Lord
Jeffreys should write an essay on gentle
ness, or Henry VIII talk about purity,
or Herod take to blessing little children.
Now, a certain amount of persecution
rouses q mans defiance, stirs his blood
for magnificent battle, and makes him
fifty times more man than he would
have been without the persecution. Sc
it was with the great reformer when he
said: Il will not be put down; will be
heard.'' And SO it was with Nillard
the preacher, in the time of Louis XII
When Louis XI sent word to him that
unless he stopped preaching in that style
he would throw him into the river, he
| tIoI Ii hot T
heaven sooner by water than he will
reach it by fast horses" A certain
amount of persecution is tonic and in
spiration, but too much of it, and too
long continued, becomes the rocE
Bozez, throwing a dark shadow ovel
mans life. What is he to dc
then? Go home, you say. Good advice
that. That is just the place for man t.
go when the world abuses him. CT
home. Blessed be God for our quiet ant
sympathetic homes. But there is man,
a man who has the reputation of having
a home when he has none. Through un
, thinkingness or precipitation there ar
many matches made that ought never t
have been made. An officiating prizes
, cannot alone unite couple. The Lor'
Almighty must proclaim banns. Their
g many home in which there is III
| sympathy and no happiness and no goo'
J cheer, The clamor of the battle may no
, have been heard outside, but God knows
| notwithstanding all the playing of til
wedding March" and all the odor Q
the orange blossoms and the benedictiol
7 of the officiating pastor, there has bee
S no marriage.
| Sometimes men have awakened to fin
s on one side of them the rock of persecu
: ton, and on the other side the rock c
v domestic infelicity. What shall such a
G one do2 Do as Jonathan did-climt
r Get up the heights of Gods consolation
f from which we may look down in tr
: umph upon outside persecution and HON
v trouble. While good and great job
S Wesley was being silenced by the magi:
n trates, and having his name written o
S the board fences of London In doggere
S at that very time his wife was maxim
Il him as miserable as she could-acting 6
G though she were possessed of til
@ devil, as 1 suppose she was; neve
e doing him a kindness until til
h day she ran away, SO that he wrot
v in his diary these words: 81 did not fo
n sake her; have not dismissed her;
J. will not recall her," Planting one foo
n John Wesley did, upon outside persecl
! tion, and the other foot on home trouble
), he climbed up into the heights {
It Christian joy, and after preaching fort
!, thousand sermons, and travelling tw
d hundred and seventy thousand mile
d reached the heights Of heaven, though
e this world he had it hard enough
: sharp rock on the one side, and shal
IS rock on the other"
o Again, that woman stands in the cris
y of the text who has bereavement and
r struggle for livelihood at the same tim
k Without mentioning names, speak fro
e observation. All, it is hard thing for
e woman to make an honest living, eve
a when her heart is not troubled, and 81
has a fair cheek and the magnetism
n an exquisite presence. But now the hu
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