Dodge City times., 1889-11-14

often because We do net hand over Ia
reins soon enough.
Can you not tell when you hear maj
pray, whether he has ever had an,
troubleS I can. The cadence, tn
phraseology indicate it. Why d,
women pray better than men? Becaus'
they have had more trouble. Before
man has any trouble, his prayeIs ar,
poetic. and he begins away up amor. th'
sun, moon and stars, and gives ene LORI
great deal of astronomical information
that must be highly gratifying. He theI
comes on down gradually over beautiful
tablelands to forever and ever, amen.
But after man has had trouble, prayer
| is with him taking hold of the arm oi
God and crying out fer help. 1 have
heard earnest prayers on two or thret
occasions that l remember.
Once, on the Cincinnati express traini
going at forty miles the hour, and the
train jumped the track, and We were
near a chaem eighty feet deep; and the
men who, few minutes before, had
been swearing and Glaspheming God,
began to pull and jerk at the bell rope,
and get up on the backs of the seats and
cried out, 20 God. save u.s." There was
another time, about eight hundred miles
out at sea, on a founderinR steamer,
after the last lifeboat had been split
finer than kindling wood. They prayed
then. Why is it You SO often hear peo-
pie, in reciting the last experience OF
some friend, say: He made the most
beautiful prayer ever heard?" What
makes it beautiful? 1t is the earnest
ness of it. Oh, tell you a man is in
earnest when his stripped and naked
soul wades out in the sOundless, shore
less, 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. 1t is contemplate 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 great deal of money, and raise it
quickly. He borrows on word and note
all he can borrow. After q while he puts
o mortgage on his house. After while
he puts q second mortgage on his house.
Then he puts lien on his furniture.
Then he makes over his life insurance.
Then he assigns all his property. Then
he goes to his father in law and asks
for help
Well. having failed everywhere, COM
pletely failed, he gets down on his
knees and says: % Lord, have tried
everybody and everything, now help me
out of this financial trouble" He makes
God the last resort instead of the first
resort. There are men who have paid
10 cents on a dollar who could have paid
q hundred cents on q dollar if they had
20 Al ~ok
know who the Lord IL. He is not an
which ne emerges once year, preceded
way. No. But father willing, at our
call, to stand by US in every crisis and
of life.
l 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
She has large 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 you will be removed to
The hospital" The young man sends to
= cOmrade in the same building. No
help. He writes to banker who was a
friend of his deceased father. No relief.
He writes to an old schoolmate, but
gets no help. Saturday night comes,
and he is moved 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 writes home. SAYING: Dear mother,
am rick urto death. Come" 1t is 10
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 min
ntes to spare. She wonders why train
that goes thirty miles an hour cannot go
sixty miles an hour. She rushes into
the hospital. She says: My son,
what does ali this mean: Why didn't
you send for me? You sent to every
body but me. You know that I could
md would help you. Is this the reward
[ get for my kindness to you always?"
She bundles him up. takes him home,
and gets him we'll very soon.
Now, some of you treat God Just as
that young man treated his mother.
When you get into a financial perplexity,
you call on the broker, you call on your
creditors, you call on your lawyer for
legal counsel; you call upon everybody,
md when you cannot get any help, then
you go to God. You say: 20 Lord 1
come to Thee. Help me now out of my
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
SO will comfort you." 1t is
10 throw us back upon an all comfort
ing God that We have this ministry of
fears.
Again, it is the use of trouble to
,apacitate US for the Office of sympathy.
The priests, under the old dispensation,
we're set apart by having water sprinkled
IN their hands, feet, and heads; and by
he sprinkling of tears people are now
yet apart to the office of sympathy.
When we are in prosperity We like to
have great many young people around
is, and We laugh when they laugh, and
We romP when they romp, and we sing
when they sing; but when We have |;
rouble we like plenty Of old folks
Iround. Why2 They know how to talk. |
Take an sgpd mother, 20 years of age,
md she is almost omnipotent in COM
'ort. Why? She has been through it |
Ill. 1t o'clock in the morning she |
goes over to comfort a young mother |
Who has just lost her babe.
Grandmother knows all about that |
rouble. Fifty years ago she felt it. At
= o'clock of that day she goes over to |
comfort widowed soul She knows
Ill about that. She has been walking |
n that dark valley twenty years. At |
o'clock in the afternoon some one |
Knocks at the door wanting bread. She |
Knows all about that. Two or three |
ines in her life she came to her last |
osf. At 10 o'clock that night she goes
'ver to sit up with some one severely |
lick. She knows all about it. She |
,nows all about fevers and pleurisies |
nd broken bones. She has been doc
oring all her life, spreading plasters,
md pouring out bitter drops, and shak-
ng up hot pillows, and contriving
hings to tempt poor appetite. Doc
ors Abernethy and Rush and Hosack |
nd Harvey were great doctors, but the ,
,reatest doctor the world ever saw is an i
Id Christian woman. Dear me: Do We |
lot remember her about the room when |
re were sick in our boyhood? Was |
here any one who coHld ever SO touch |
sore without hurting it?
And when she lifted her spectacles