Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1890-11-17

mountain shall reply to mountain, as
Mount Gerizim to Mount Ebal, and all the
/ people between shall ascribe riches and
honor and glory aud dominion and victory
% God the Lamb, and there shall arise an
amen like the booming of the heavens
mingling with the thunder of the seas.
THE IIEARTBRoKEN FATHER.
On and on we ride, until now we have
come to Shiloh, dead city on a kill sur
rounded by rocks, sheep, goats, olive gar
dens and vineyards. Here good Eli fell
/ backward and broke his, neck, and lay dead
at the news f=on his bad boys, Phineas and
Hophni; and life Is not worth livingsafter
ones children have turned out badly and
more fortunate was Eli, Instantly expiring
under such tidings, than those parents
who, their children recreant and prohigate,
| live on with broken hearts to see them
going down into deeper and deeper plunge.
There are fathers and mothers here today
to whom death would be happy release be-
cause Of their recreant sons. And il there
be recreant sons here present. and your
parents be far away, why not bow your
head in repentance, and at the close Of this
service 60 to the telegraph Office and put
1t on the wing Of the lightning that you
have turned from your evil waysY Before
another twenty-four hours have passed
take your feet off the sad hearts of the old
homestead Home to thy God, o prod
igall
Many, many letters do get in purport
saying; My son-is in your cities; we have
not heard from him for some time; we
fear something is wrong; hunt him up
and say good word TO him. his mother is
almost crazy about him; he is a child Of
many prayers. But how can / hunt him
up unless he be in this audience? Where
are you, my boyS On the main floor, or
on this platform, on in these boxes, or in
these great galleries? Where are you?
Lift your right hand. have a message
from home. YouIfather is anxious about
you; your mother is praying for you.
Your God is calling for you. Or viii you
wait until Eli falls back lifeless, and the
heart against which you lay in infancy
ceases to beat2 What a story to tell in
eternity that you killed herr My Godi
Avert that catastrophel
But turn from this Shiloh of Ellis sud
den decease under bad news from his boys
and find close by what is called the
Meadow of the Feast" While this an
cient city was in the height of its prosper
ity on this meadow Of the Feast" there
was an annual ball, where the maidens of
the city amid clapping cymbals and a blare
Of trumpets danced in glee, upen which
thousands of spectators gazed. But no
dance since the world stood ever broke up
in such strange way as the one the Bible
describes. One night while by the light of
the lamps and torches these gayeties went
on, two hundred Benjamites, who had been
he
trees, dashed upon the scene. They came
not TO injure or Destroy but wishing to set
up households Of their own, the women of
their own land having been slain in battle,
by preconcerted arrangement each one
of the two hundred Benjamites seized the
one whom he chose for the queen of his
homo and carried her away to large estate
and beautiful residence, for these two hun
dred Benjamites had inherited the wealth
Of a nation.
BENJANIITE CoURTsHIP.
AS today near Shiloh we look at the
meadow of the Feast" where the maidens
danced that night, and at the mountain
gorge up which the Benjamites carried
their brides, we bethink ourselves of the
better land and the better times in which
we live, when such scenes arc an impossi-
bility, and amid orderly groups and with
prayer and benediotion, and breath of
orange blossoms, and the roll Of the we'd
ding march, marriage is solemnized and
with oath recorded in heaven, two inn
nAertals start arm in arm ON journey to
last until death do them part. Upon every
such marriage altar may there come the
blessing Of him "who setteth the solitary
in familiesp Side by side on the path of
lifel Side by side in their gravesl Side by
side in heaven!
But we must this afternoon, our last day
before reaching Nazareth pitch our tent
on the most famous battlefield of all time
the plain of Esdraelon. What must have
been the feelings of the Prince of Peace as
he crossed it ON the way from Jerusalem
to NAZARETH Not a flower blooms there
but has in its veins the inherited blood of
flowers that drank the blood of fallen ar
mics Hardly foot of ground that has not
at some time been quilted with war chart
OTIS or trampled with the hoofs of cavalry
II is plain reaching from the Mediter-
ranean TO the Jordan. Upon it look down
the mountains of Tabor and Gilboa and
Carmel. Through it RACES at certain sea-
sons the river Kishon, which swept down
the armies of Sisera, the battle occurring
in November when there is almost always
shower of meteors, so that "the stars in
their courses" were said to have fought
against Sisera Through this plain drove
Jehu, and the iron chariots of the Canaan
ties, scythed at the hubs of the wheels,
hewing down their awful swathes of death,
thousands in minute The Syrian armies,
the Turkish armies, the Egyptian armies
again and again trampled it, There they
career across il. David and Joshua and
Godfrey and Richard Cmur de Lion and
Baldwin and Saladin-a plain not only IA
nous for the past, but famous because the
Bible says the great decisive battle of the
world will be fought there-the battle of
Armageddon.
THE Fight FOR THE HOLY CROSS.
To me the plain was the more absorbing
because Of the desperate battles here and
in regions round in which the holy cross
the very two pieces Of wood on which Jesus
was supposed to have been crucified-was
carried as standard at the head
of the Christian host, and that night
closing my eyes in my tent on the plain OF
Esdraelon--for there are some things we
can see better with eyes shut than open
the scenes of that ancient war come before
me. The Twelfth century was closing and
Saladin at the head of eighty thousand
mounted troops was crying, "Hol for
Jerusalemw "Ho for all Palestinel" and
before them everything went down, but
not without unparalleled resistance. In
one place one hundred and thirty Chris
tains were surrounded by many thousands
of furious Mohammedans. For one whole
day the one hundred and thirty held out
against these thousands. Tennyson's six
hundred" when "some one had blundered,"
were eclipsed by these one hundred and
thirty fighting for the holy cross. They