The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1888-10-12

clothes come of and your uncovered
soul stands In Judgment and before God,
you will be better off II you save that
woman.
There is another exploit that you can
do, and that Is to save child. A child
does not seem to amount to much. It IL
nearly year old before it can walk at
all. For the first year and half it can
not speak word. For the first ten
years 1t would starve II it had to earn
It's own food. For the first fifteen years
its opinion on any subject is absolutely
valueless. And then there are SO many
Of them. My! what lots Of children
And some people have contempt for
children. They are good for nothing
but to wear out the carpets and
break things and keep you awake
nights crying. Well, your esti-
mate Of child is quite different
from that mothers estimate who lost her
child this summer, They took it to the
salt air of the seashore and to the tonic
air Of the mountains, but no help came,
and the brief paragraph of its life is
ended. Suppose that life could be re-
stored by purchase, how much would
that bereaved mother give9 She would
take all the jewels from her fingers and
neck and bureau and put them down.
And if told that that was not enough,
she would take her house and make over
the deed for it, and if that were
not enough she would call in all her
investments and put down all her mort
cages and bonds, and if told that were
not enough she would say: II have made
over all my property, and if I can have
that child back will now pledge that
will toll with my own hands and carry
with my own shoulders in any kind Of
hard work, and live in cellar and die
in garnet. Only give me back that lost
darling" am gau that there are those
who know something of the value of a
child. Its possibilities are tremendous.
What will those hands yet do2 Where
will those feet yet walk? Toward what
destiny will that never dying soul be-
take itself2 Shall those lips be the
throne Of blasphemy or benediction2
Come, all ye surveyors of the earth, and
bring link and chain and measure If you
can its possible possessions. Come, all
We astronomers of the earth, with your
telescopes and tell us if you can see the
range Of its eternal flight. Come, all We
chronologists, and calculate the decades
on decades, the centuries on centuries,
the cycles on cycles, the eternities on
eternities of its lifetime. Oh, to save
child! Am l not right in putting that
among the great exploits? Yea, it beats
the other two, for if you save the child
you save the man or you save the
woman. Get the first twenty years of
that boy or girl all right and I guess you
have got manhood or womanhood all
right, and their entire earthly and eter-
nal career all right. But what are you
going to do with those children who are
worse off than if their father or mother
had died the day they were born? There
are tens Of thousands of such. Their
parentage was against them. Their
name is against them. The structure of
their skulls against them. Their nerves
and muscles contaminated by the in
ebriety or dissoluteness of their parents,
they are practically at their birth laid
out on plank in the middle of the At
lantic ocean in an equinoctial gale and
told to make for shore. The first greet
ing they get from the world is to
be called a brat or ragamuffin or a
wharf rat. What to do with them is the
question often asked. There is another
question quite as pertinent, and that ia,
What are they going to do with us? They
will ten or eleven years from now have
as many votes as the same number of
we'll born children, and they will hand
this land over to anarchy and political
damnation Just as sure as we neglect
them. Suppose we each one of us save
a boy or save girl. You can do it.
VIII you? will. Take cake of per-
fumeo soap and finetoothed comb
and New Testament and little candy
and prayer and a piece of cake and faith
in God and common sense, and begin
this afternoon.
But how shall we get ready for one or
all of these three exploits2 We shall
make a dead failure if in our own
strength we try to save man or woman
or child. But my text suggests where
we are to get equipment. 1.-THE people
that do know their God shall be strong,
and do exploits" We must know him
through Jesus Christ in our own saliva
ton and then we shall have his help in
the salvation of others. And while you
are saving strangers you may save some
of your own kin. You think your BROTH
ers and sisters and children and grand
children all safe, but they are not dead,
and no one is safe till he, is dead. On
the English coast there was wild storm
and wreck in the offing, and the cry
was: "Man the lifeboat." But Harry,
the usual leader of the sailors crew, was
not to be found, and they went without
him, and brought back all the ship
wrecked people except one. By this
time Harry, the leader of the crew, ap.
peared and said: "Why did you leave
that oner' The answer was: He could
not help himself at all and we could not
get him into the boat" ''Man the life
boat" shouted Harry, "and we will 90
for that one." "No," said his aged mo
ther standing by, 'you must not go. lost
your father in a storm like this, and your
hrother Will went off six years ago and
I have not heard word from Will since
be left, and I don't know where he Is,
and don't know what has happened to
/