Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1889-06-21
gathered thee as a hen satbereth her

he had noticed His mother by the plain
candle light which, as ever and anon it
was snuffed and the removed wick put
down on the candlestick, beamed brightly
through all the family sitting-r room as
His mother was mending His garments
behring's among the rocks or bushes, and
years afterwards it all came out in the
smile of the greatest sermon ever
preached: Neither do men light
candle and put it under bushel but in
a 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 out the clothes that
had been put away for the summer He
noticed how the moth miller flew out
and the coat dropped apart ruined and
useless, and SO twenty years after He
enjoined: Lay up for yourselves treas
rust can corrupt" His boyhood spent
among birds and flowers they all caroled
and bloomed again fifteen years after rs
He cries out: behold the fowls of the
air." Consider the lilies" A great
storm one day during Christ's boyhood
blackened the Heavens and angered the
rivers. Perhaps standing in the door
of the capenter's shop He watched it
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 triumphant
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 peroration of flood
and whirlwind that seized His audience
and lifted them into the heights of
| sublimity with the two great arms of
| pathos and terror, which sublime words
L render, asking you as far as possible
to forget that you ever heard them be-
! fore: "Whosoever heareth these say
ings of mine, and doeth them, will
liken him unto wise man, which built
his house upon rock, and the rain de-
scended, and the floods came, and the
winds blew, and beat upon that house,
and it fell not; for it was founded upon
rock. And every one that heareth
these sayings of mine, and doeth them
not, shall be likened unto o foolish man,
which built his house upon the sand:
and the rain descended, and the floods
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 SIM
plicity, the freshness of His parallels
and smiles and metaphors in manhood
discourse know that He had been boy
of the fields and had bathed in the
streams and heard the nightingale's call,
and broken through the fowery hedge
and looked out Of the embrasures ofthe
fortress, and drank from the wells and
chased the butterflies, which travellers
say have always been one of the fitting
beauties of that landscape, and talked
with the strange people from Damascus
and Egypt and Sapphoris and SYRIA, who
in caravans or on foot passed through
his neighborhood, the dogs barking at
their approach at sundown. AS after
ward He was q perfect man, in the time
of which speak He was perfect boy,
with the spring of boys foot, he
sparkle of boys eye, the rebound o. q
boys life and justthe opposite Of these
juveniles who sit around morbid AID
unelastic, old men at ten. I warrant He
and to take the part of 9TH
ers. In that village of Nazareth {
am certain there was what is found il
all the neighborhoods of the earth, tina,
terror of children, the bully, who seems
born to strike, to punch, to bruise, te
overpOwer the less muscular and robust
The Christ who afterward in no limited
terms denounced hypocrite and Phari.
see, warrant, never let such juvenile
villain impose upon less vigorous child
hood and yet go unscratched and un.
defended. At ten years He was in sym.
pathy with the underlings as He was a
thirty and thirty-three. I want NJ
furth er inspired or uninspired informa
ton to persuade me that He was splen.
did boy, radiant boy, the grandest
hottest, mightiest boy of all the ages
Hence commend Him as a.boy's Christ
What multitudes between ten and tiftee1
years have found Him out as the one Just
suited by his own personal experience
to help any boy.
Let the world look out how it treads
on boy, for that very moment it treadt
on Christ You strike boy, you strike
Christ; you insult a boy, you insult
Christ; you cheat boy, you chea,
Christ. It is an awful and infinite mis-.
take to come as far as manhood without
was one reason, I suppose, that Jona-
than Edwards, afterwards the greatest
American logician and preacher of his
time, became Christian at Z years OF
age; and Robert Hall. who afterwards
shook Christendom with his sacred elo.
quence, became a Christen at - years OF
age; and Isaac Watts, who divided with
Charles Wesley the dominion of holy
song, became Christian at years Of
age; and if in any large religious assem-.
blage it were asked that all the men and
women who learned to love Christ be.
fore they were fifteeny years of age would
please lift their right hand, there would
be enough hands lifted to wave coro.
nation. What is true in religious
sense is true in secular sense. The
mistocles amazed his school fellows
with talents which in after years made
the world stare. Isaac Newton, the boy,
by driving pegs in the side of house to
mark the decline of the sun, evidenced
disposition towards the experiments
which afterwards showed the nations
how the worlds swing. Robert Stephen
son, the boy, with his kite on the COM
mons experimental with electric cur.
rents and prophesied work which should
yet make him immortal. Get out of my
way!" said rough man to boy, "get
out of my way! what are you good fol-
anyhow" The boy answered: "Ihey
make men out of such things as we are.
Hear it, fathers, mothers! near it, phil.
anthropists and patriots; hear it, all the
young! The temporal and eternal des-
tiny of the most of the inhabitants of