Connecticut western news., 1890-11-19

tine or any other country that once thoroughly dug was not sooner or later filled from the clouds, and this will be no exception" For months after Jacob had completed the we'll people went by,
 and out of respect for the deluded old
 man put their hand over their mouth to hide a snicker, and the we'll re-
 mained as dry as the bottom of ket
 tie that has been hanging over the fire for three hours
 But one day the sun was drawing
 water and the wind got round to the
 east and it began to drizzle, and then
 great drops splashed all over the we'll
 curb, and the heavens opened their
 reservoir, and the rainy season poured
 it's floods for six weeks, and there came
 maidens to the we'll with empty pails
 and carried them away full, and the
 canels thrust their mouths into the
 troughs and were satisfied, and the
 water was in the well three feet deep
 and fifty feet deep and two hundred
 feet deep, and all the Bedouins of the
 neighborhood and all the passers by realized that Jacob was wise in having his own well. My nearer, it is your part to dig your own we'll and it is Gods part to fill it. You do your part | and he will do his part.
 Much is said about good luck, ;" but people who are industrious and self
 denying almost always have good luck.
 You can afford to be laughed at be- cause of your application and economy, for when you get your we'll dug and filled it will be your turn to laugh.
 BLESSED OR CURSED?
 But look up from this famous we'll and see two mountains and the plain between them, on which was gathered the largest religious audience that ever
 assembled on earth, about five hundred
 thousand people. Mount Gerizim, about eight hundred feet high, on one side, and on the other Mount Ebal, the
 former called the Mount of Blessing l and the latter called the Mount of Cursing. At Joshua's command six tribes stood on Mount Gerizim and ! read the blessings for keeping the law and six tribes stood on Mount Ebal reading the curses for breaking the law while the five hundred thousand peo- 1 pie on the plain cried "Amen" with an emphasis that must have made the
 earth tremble. II do not believe that, :" says some one, flor those mountain tops are two miles apart, and how | could voice be heard from top to l top?" My answer is that while the tops ! are two miles apart the bases of the mountains are only half mile apart, r and the tribes stood on the sides of the mountains, and the air is so clear and ] the acoustic qualities of this great nat ural amphitheatre so perfect that
 voices can be distinctly heard from
 mountain to mountain, as has been
 demonstrated by travellers fifty times in the last fifty years.
 Can you imagine anything more thrilling and sublime and overwhelm-
 ing than what transpired on those two
 mountain sides, and in the plain be-
 tween, when the responsive service
 went on and thousands of voices on l Mount Geriziln cried, Blessed shalt
 thou be in the city, and blessed shalt
 thou be in the fields, blessed shalt be | thy basket and thy store!" and then
 from Mount Ebal thousands of voices
 responded, crying: Cursed be he that
 removeth his neighbor's landmark l Cursed be he that naketh the blin to
 wander out of tho way" and then there rolled up from all the space be- tween the mountains that one word,
 with which the devaut of earth close
 their prayers, and the glorified of
 heaven finish their dozologies, Amen!
 amen !"-that scene only to be sur
 passed by the times which are coming,
 when the churches, and the academies
 of music, and the auditoriums of earth,
 no longer large enough to hold the
 worshipers of God; the parks, the
 mountain sides, the great natural am
 phitheatres of the valleys, shall be l filled with the outpouring populations l of the earth, and mountain shall reply 1 to mountain, as Mount Gerizim to l Mount Ebal, and all the people be- l tween shall ascribe riches and honor
 and glory and dominion and victory to 1 God the Lamb, and there shall arise an l amen like the booming of the heavens l lningling with the thunder of the seas. THE SAD DEATH OF ELI.
 On and on we ride until now we
 have come to Shiloh, a dead city on a hill surrounded by rocks, sheep, goats ,olive gardens and vineyards. Here good Eli fell backward and broke his ] neck, and lay dead at the news from his bad boys, Phineas and Hophni; i; 1 and life is not worth living after ones children have turned out badly, and more fortunate was Eli, instantly ex- pirins under such tidings, than those
 parents who, their children recre-
 ant and profligate. 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 because of their recreant sons. And if there be recreant sons
 here present, and your parents be far
 away, why not bow your head in re- pentance, and at the close of this serv-
 ice go to the telegraph office and put it on the wing of the lightning that you have turned from your evil ways9 Be- l fore another twentyfour hours have passed take your feet off the sad hearts
 at the old homestead. Home to thy
 God, O prQdigal!
 Many, many letters do I get in pur- port 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 8 gooo word to him
 his mother is almost crazy about him
 he is child of many prayers. But