The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1889-06-26
cliyetic pulpit.


races, vineyards, cactus, sycamores. These
outbranching foliages did not have ~ wait
for the foods before their silence was bro
ken. for through them and over them and IN
circles round them and under them were
pelicans, were thrushes, were sparrows,
Were uightingales, were larks. were quails,
were blackbir6s, were partridgeS, We're bull
bulls Yonder the white focks Of sheep
showed down over the pasture lands. And
Yonder the brook rehearses to the pebbles
its adventures down the rocky shelving.
Yonder are the Oriental homes, the house
wife with pitcher on the shoulder entering
the door, and down the lawn in front chill
dren reveling among the flaming fora. And
all this spring and song and grass and sun
shine and shadow woven into the most eX-
ouisite nature that ever breathed or weps
or sung or suffered. Through studying the
sky between the hills Christ had noticed
the weather signs, and that a crimson sky
at night meant dry weather next day, and
that crimson sky in the morning meant
wet weather before nigaS. And how beau
tifully he made use Of it in after years, as
he drove down upon the pestiferous Phari-
see and Sadducee, by crying out: When 1t
is evening We say it will be fair weather, for
the sky is red, and in the morning 1t will be
foul weather to-day, for the sky IS red and
lowering. Dye hypocrites, ye can discern
the face Of the sky, but can We not discern
the signs Of the tines" By day, as every
boy has done, he watched the barnyard fowl
at sight Of over-swinging hawk cluck her
chickens under wing and in after years he
said: 20, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Ho"
often would have gathered thee as hen
gathereth her chickens under her wing"
BY night he had noticed his mother by tie
plain candle light which, as ever and anon
it was snuffed and the removed wick put
down on the candlestlck, beamcd brightly
through ali the family sitting-room IS his
mother was mending his garments that had
been torn during the days wandering among
the rocks or bushes, and years afterward 1t
all came out in the smile of the greatest SER
mon ever preached: ''Neither do men light a
candle and put it under bushel, but in
candlestick, and it giveth light to all who
are in the house Let your light so shine" )"
Some time when his mother in the autumn
took ont the clothes that had been put away
for the summer he noticed how the moth
miller few out and the coat dropped apart
ruined and useless, and so twenty
years after he enioined: Lay up
for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where
neither moth nor rust can corrupt" His
boyhood spent among birds and flowers, they
all caroled and bloomed again fifteen years
after as he cries out: Behold the fowls OF
the air.n "Consider the lilies" A great
storm one day during Christ's boyhood
blackened the heavens aud angered the
rivers. Perhaps standing in the door OF the
carpenters shop he watched 1t gathering
louder and wilder until two cyclones, one
sweeping down from Mount Tabor and the
other from Mount Carmel, met in the valley
of Esdraelon and two houses are caught IN
the fury and crash goes the one and trium-
phant stands the other, and he noticed that
one had shifting sand for foundation and
the other an eternal rock for basis; and
twenty years after he built the whole scene
into q aperoration Of food and whirlwind that
seized the audience and lifted them into the
heights of sublimity with the two great
arms of pathos and terror, which sublime
words render, asking you as far as posi-
bic to forget that you ever heard them be-
fore: ssWhosoever heareth these sayings
of mine, and doeth them, will iken him
unto a wise man, which built his house
upon a rock; and the rain descended, and
the foods came and the winds blew, and
beat upon that house; and it fell not; for 1t
was founded upon rock.SS every one,
that heareth these saIiae 8,
doeth them not
sassec sazeU the rain descended, and the
foods came, and the winds blew, and beat
upon that house; and it fell; and great was
the fall Of it."
Yes, from the naturalness, the simplicity,
the freshness Of His parallels and Smiles
and metaphors in manhood discourse l
know that He had been a boy Of the helds
and had bathed in the streams and heard
the nightingales call, aud broken through
the fowery hedge and looked out Of the
embrasures of the fortress, and drank from
the wells and chased the butterflies, which
travelerssay have always been one Of the
fitting beauties Of that landscape, and
talked with the strange people OF Damascus
and Egypt and Sapphoris and Syria, who in
caravans or OF foot passed through His
neichborhoo6, the dogs barking at their ap-
oroach at sundown. AS afterwards he was
a perfect man, in the time Of which l speak
Hewas perfect boy, with the spring OF
bows foot, the sparkle Of boys eye, the
rebound of a boys life, andiust the opposite
of those juveniles who sit around morbid
and unelastic, old men at ten. warrant
He was able to take His own part and
10 take the part of others. In that
village of Nazareth I am certain
there was what is found in all the
neighborhoods of the earth. that terror OF
children, the bully, who seems born
to strike, to punch, to bruise, to overpower
the less muscular and robust. The Christ
who afterward in no limited terms de-
nounced hypocrite and Pharisee, warrant,
never let such Juvenile villain impose upon
less vigorous childhood and yet go unscathed
and undefended. At ten years he was IN
sympathy with the underlings as he was at
thirty and three. want no further inspired
or uninspired information to persuade me
that he was a splendid boy, a radiant boy,
the gran6est, holiest, mightiest boy OF all
the ages. Hence commend him as boys
Christ. What multitudes between ten and
fifteen years have found him out as the one
lust suited by his own personal experience
to help any boy.
Let the world look out how it treads on
bov, for that very moment it trcads on
Christ. You strike a boy, you strike Christ;
you insult boy, you insult Christ; you
cheat boy. you cheat Christ. 1t is an
awful and infinite mistake to come as far as
manhood without Christ when here is
bov Christ. That was one reason why.
suppose, that Jonathan Edwards, after
wards the greatest American logician and
preacher ci his time, became Christian at
seven gears Of age; and Robert Hall, who
afterwards shook Christendom with his
sacred eloouence, became Christian at
twelve years Of age; and Isaac Watts, who
divided with Charles Wesley the dominion
of holy song. became Christian at nine
years of age; and if in any large religious
assemblage it were asked that all the men
and worer who learned to love Christ
before they were fifteen years Of age
would please lift their right hand,
there would be enough hands lifted
to wave a coronation. What is true in
religious sense is true in secular sense.
school fallOwS