Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1889-11-08

handed over the reins to her and / had e
admire the glee with which she drove But
after while we met team and we had tc
turn out. The road was narrow, and it was
sheer down on both sides. She handed the
| relns over to me- and said. 81 think you had
better take charge of the horse SO we are
all children; and ON this road of life We like
10 drive. 1t gives one such an appearance of
superiority and power. IL looks big But
after a while we meet some obstacle, and we
have to turn out, and the road is narrow.
and it is sheer down on both sides; and then
we are willing that God should take the
reins and drive. All my friends. we get IN
set so often because we do not hand over the
reins soon enough.
Can you not tell when you hear a man
pray whether he has ever had any trouble9
1 can. The cadence, the phraseology indicate
| IL. why do women pray better than mem
Because they have had more trouble Be
fore man has had any trouble. his prayers
are poetic, and he begins away up among the
sun, moon and stars and gives the Lord q
great deal of astronomical information that
must be highly gratifying. He then comes
on down gradually over beautifully table,
lands to forever and ever, amen" But af-
ter man has had trouble, prayer is with
him taking hold of the arm of God and cry
ing out for help. have heard earnest pray
ers on two or three occasions that l remem-
Der.
Once, ON the Cincinnati express train,
going at forty miles the hour, and the
train jumped the track, and we were
near chasm eighty feet deep; and the
men who, few minutes before, had been
swearing and disappearing God, began to
pull and jerk at the bell rope, and got
up on the backs of the seats and cried
out: 20 God, save uspi There was auather
time, about eight hundred miles out at ssa
on laundering steamer, after the last
llfeboat had been split finer than Bindling
wood. They prayed then. Why is it you
so often hear people, in reeiting the last ex-
perience of some friend, say: ''He made the
most beautiful prayer ever heardy' What
makes it beautiful? It is the earnestness of
it. Oh, tell you a man is in earnest when
his stripped and naked soul wades ont in the
soundless, shoreless bottomless ocean of
eternity.
1t is trouble my friends that makes us feel
our dependence upon God We do not know
our own weakness or Gods strength until
the last plank breaks. It is contemptible in
us when there is nothing else to take hold of,
that we catch hold of God only. A man is
unfortunate in business. He has to raise a
great deal of money, and raise it quickly.
He borrows on word and note all he can bor-
row. After while he puts mortgage on
his house. After while he puts a second
mortgage on his house. Then he puts a lien
on his furniture. Then he makes over his
life insurance. Then he assigns all his prop-
erty. Then he goes to his father-in-law and
asks for helpl
Well, having failed everywhere. COM
pleteiy failed, he gets down ON his knees and
says: ~ Lord, | have tried everybody and
everything, now help me out of this fnan-
clal trouble" He makes God the last resort
instead of the first resort. There are men
who have paid ten cents on dollar who
could have paid hundred cents on dollar
If they had gone to God in time Why, you
do not know who the Lord is. He is not an
autocrat seated far up in palace, from
which he emerges once a year, preceded by
heralds swinging swords to clear the way!
No But a Father willing at our call, to
stand by us in every crisis and predicament
of life
| tell you what some of you business men
make me think of. A young man goes off
from home to earn his fortune He goes
with his mothers consent and benediction.
| She has largo wealth; but he wants to make
his own fortune. He goes far away, falls
sick, gets out of money. He sends for the
hotel keeper where he is staying, asking for
lenience, and the answer he gets is: IF you
don't pay up Saturday night you'll be re-
moved to the hospital" The young man
sends to a comrade in the same building. No
help. he writes to a banker who was a
friend of his deceased father. No relief, He
W-1tes TO an old schoolmate, but gets no help
Saturday night comes and he is removed to
the hospital.
Getting there, he is frenzied with grief: and
he borrows a sheet of paper and a postage
stamp, and he sits down, and he writes home
saying: Dear mother, | am sick unto death
Come" 1t is ten minutes of 10 o'clock when
| she gets the letter. At 10 o'clock the train
| starts. She is five minutes from the depot
She gets there in time to have five minutes to
spare She wonders why train that can go
thirty miles an hour cannot go sixty miles an
| hour. She rusheS into the hospital She saws:
my son, what does all this mean? Why didn't
| you send for me? You sent to everybody but
me. You knew I could and would help YOU
! Is this the reward get for my kindness to
! you alwaysr She bundles him up takes him
home and gets him well very soon.
Now, some of you treat God just as that
young man treated his mother When you
| get into financial perplexity. you call OF the
banker you call on the broker, you call ON your
creditors, you call on your lawyer for legal
counsel; you call upon everybody, and when
| you cannot get any help, then you go to God.
| You say: 20 Lord / come to Thee. Help
me now out of my perplexity." And the
Lord comes, though it is the eleventh hour
He says: why did you not send for Me
| before? As one whom his mother comforteth
SO will comfort you" 1t is to throw us back
upon an all comforting God that we have
| this ministry of tears.
Again, it is the use Of trouble to capacitate
us for the office of sympathy. The priests.
under the old dispensation, were set apart by
having water sprinkled on their hands, feet
and head; and by the sprinkling of tears
| people are now set apart to the Office of
sympathy. When we are in prosperity we
like to have great many young people
| around us, and we laugh when they laugh
and we roinp when they romp, and we sing
when they sing; but when we have trouble
we like plenty of old folks around. Why?
| They know how to talk. Take an aged
mother, seventy years of age, and she is al
| most omnipotent in comfort Why? She
has been through it all. At z o'clock in the
morning she goes over to comfort young
mother who has just lost her babe
Grandmother knows all about that trou.
BILE Fifty years ago she felt it, At II
o'clock of that day she goes over to comfort
widowed soul She knows all about that.
She has been walking in that dark valley
twenty years. At o'clock Ia the afternoon
some one knocks at the door wanting bread
She knows oil about that Two or three
times in her life she came to her last loaf.
At 10 o'clock that night she goes over to sit
up with some one severely sick She knoW Tvs
all about it. She knows all about fevers and
pleurisies and broken bones. She has been
doctoring all her life, spreading plasters and
pouring out bitter drops, and shaking up hot
pillows, and contriving things to tempt 8
poor appetite Doctors Abernethy and Rush
and Hosack and Harvey were great doctors
but the greatest doctor the worlo ever saw i;
an old Christian woman. Dear mel Do we
not remember her about the room when we
were sick in our boyhood? Was there any
one who could ever SO touch a sore without
hurting it?
And when she lifted her spectacles against