Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1889-06-22

felt his way down into the caves and haC
with 1.-the and agile limb gained a pcise
on many a high tree top. His boyhood
was passed among grand scenery as most
all the great natures have passed early
life among the mountains. They may
live now on the fats, but they have
passed the receptive days Of ladhood
among the hills. Among the mountains
Of New Hampshire or the mountains OF
Virginia or the mountains Of Kentucky
or the mountains Of Switzerland or Italy
or Austria or Scotland or mountains of
the worlds thrilling biographies began.
Our Lords boyhood was passed in a
n~eighborhood 1900 feet above the level
of the sea and surrounded by mountains
500 or 800 feet still higher. Before II could
shine on the village where this boy slept
the sun had to climb far enough up 10
look over the hills that held their heads
far aloft. From yonder height his eye al
one sweep took in the mighty scoop of
the valleys and with another sweep took
ia the Mediterranean sea, and you hear
the grandeur Of the cliffs and the surge OF
the great waters in his matches sermon
ology. One day l see that divine boy,
the wind ~hurrying his hair over his VI n
Drowned forehead, standing on q hill top
looking Of upon Lake Tiberias, On which
at one time according TO profanc history
are. not four hundred four thousand
ships. Authors have taken pains TO say
that Christ was not affected by these
surroundings, and that he from within
lived outward and independent Of cir
cumstances. So far from that being true,
he was the most sensitive being that ever
walked the face Of the earth, and il a
pale invalid's weak finger could not
touch his robe without strength going
out from him, these mountains and seas
could not have touched his eye without
irradiating his entire nature with their
magnitcence. warrant that he had
mounted and explored all the fifteen hills
round Nazareth, among them Hermon
with its crystal coronet of perpetual
snow, and Carmel and Tabor and Gilboa,
and they all had their sublime echo in
after time from the Olivetic pulpit.
And then it WAS not uncultivatei
grandeur. These hills carried in their
arms or en- their backs gardens, groves,
orchards, terraces, vineyards, cactus,
sycamores. These ~outbranching foliages
did not have to wait for the feeds before
their silence was broken, for through
them and over them and in circles round
them and in under them were pelicans,
were thrushes, were sparrows, were
nichtirgales, were larks, were quails,
were blackbirds, were cartridges, were
bu'buls. Ycnder the white focks Of
sheep showed down over the pasture
lands. And yonder the brook rehearses
10 the pebbles it's adventures down the
rocky shelving, Yonder are the oriental
homes, the housewife with pitcher on the
shoulder entering the door, and down the
lawn in front children reveling among
the flaming fora. And all this spring
and song and grass and sunshine and
shadow woven into the most exquisite
nature that ever breathed or wept or
sung or suffered. Through studying the
sky between the hills Christ had noticed
the weather signs, and that q crimson
sky at night meant dry weather next day,
and that a crimson sky in the morning
meant wet weather before night. And
how beautif. Y he made use Of it in
after years d be drove down upon the
pestiferous Pharisee and Sadducee by
crying out: When il is evening ye say
i, will be fair weather, for the sky is red,
and in the morning it will be foul
weather today, for the sky is red and
lowering. o ye hypocrites, ye can dis
Germ the face of the sky, but can ye not
discern the signs of the times" BY day,
as every boy has done he watched the
barnysrd fowl at sight Of overswinging
hawk cluck her chickens under wing,
and in sitter years he said: 30, Jerusa-
lem, Jerusalem! How often would !
have gathered thee as a hen ga,hereth
her chickens under her wing BY night
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 csndlestick, beamed
brightly through all the family sitting
room as his mother was mending his
garments that had been torn during the
days wanderings 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
a candle and put it under a bushel but in
a candlestick and it giveth light TO oil
who are in the house. Let your light 30
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 enjeined:
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
doomed again fifteen years after as he
cried out: Behold the fowls OF the air"
Consider the lilies" A great storm n
day during Christ's boyhood blackened
the heavens and angered the rivers.
Perhaps standing in the door of the car.
penter'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 a
foundation and the other a. eternal rock
for basis; and twenty years after he built
the whole scene into a peroration Of food
and whirlwind that seized his audience
and lifted them into the heights of sub
Unity with the two great arms Of pathos
| and terror, which sublime words | render,
asking you as far as possible to forge'
that you ever heard them before: WHO
soever heareth these sayings of mine, anc
doeth them, | will liken 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 upor
that house: and il fell not; for il was
founded upon 8 rock. And every one
| that haarpth those aayipps IF mine api