Connecticut western news., 1890-10-22
THE GOOD ABYSSINIAN.

THE GOOD ABYSSlN1AN.
 I saw in London the vast procession
 which one day last January moved to
 St. PauIs cathedral at the burial of
 that Christian hero, Lord Napier. The
 day after, at Hawarden, in conversation
 on various themes, I asked MT. Glad
 stone if he did not think that many
 who were under the shadow of false re-
 ligions might not nevertheless be at
 heart really Christian. Mir. Gladstone
 replied: 'sYes; my old friend Lord Ma
 pier, who was yesterday buried, after
 he returned from his Abyssinian cam
 paign, visited us here at Hawarden,
 and walking in this park where we are
 now walking he told me very beauti-
 full incident. He said: After the war
 in Africa was over we were on the
 march, and we had a soldier with
 broken leg who was not strong enough to go along with us, and we did hot dare to leave him to be taken care of by savages; but we found we were compelled to leave him, and we went into the house of woman who was said to be very kind woman, though of the race of savages, and we said, "Here is sick man, and if you will take care of him till he gets well we will pay you very largely" and then we offered her five times that which would ordinarily be offered, hoping by the excess of pay to secure for him great kindness. The woman replied: 'T will not take care of him for the money you offer I do not want your money. But leave him here and l will take care of him for the sake of the love of God."'' Mr. Gladstone turned to me and said, 'tDr Talmage, don't you think that though she be- longed to race of savages that was pure religion2" And I answered, 'I do; do." May God multiply all the world over the number of good Samar- itansl
 In Philadelphia a young woman was dying. She was a wreck. Sunken into the depths of depravity there was
 no lower depth for her to reach. Word came to the midnight mission that she
 was dying in haunt of iniquity near by. Who would go to tell her of the Christ of Mary Magdalen9 This one refused, and that one refused, saying, 'T dare not go there.' A Chris tian woman, her white locks typical of her purity of soul, said, ''I will go, and I will go now" She went and sat
 down by the dying girl, and told of the Christ who came to seek and save that which was lost. First to the forlorn one came the tears of repentance, and
 then the smile, as though she had be- gun to hope for the pardon of him who
 came to save to the uttermost. Then, | just before she breathed her last, she
 said to the angel of mercy bending
 over her pillow, Would you kiss
 me2' 'T will,' said the Christian
 woman, as she put upon her cheek the last salutation before in the heavenly
 world, think, God gave her the vel
 coming kiss That was religion! Yes, that was religion Good Samaritans along every street and along every road, as well as this one on the road to Jericho.
 THE RAVENS OF CHERITH.
 But our procession of sightseers is
 again in line, and here we pass through deep ravine, and cry to the drago-
 man, David, what place do you call
 this2'' and he replied, 'This is the 1 brook Cherith, where Elijah was fed by l the ravens" And in that answer he 1 overthrow my life long notions of the place where Elijah was waited on by the black servants of the sky. A brook
 to me had meant slight depression of 1 ground and stream fordable, and 1 perhaps fifteen feet wide But here l was a chasm that an earthquake must have scooped out with it's biggest shovel l or split with it's mightiest battle ax l Six hundred feet deep is it, and the l brook Cherith is river, which, when in full force, is a silver wedge, splitting l the mountains into precipices The ] feathered descendants of Elijah's ravens still wing their way across this ravine, but are not like the crows we supposed them to be. They are as large as eagles, 1 and one of them could carry in it's beak and clinched claw at once enough food
 for half dozen Elijahs. No thanks 1 to the ravens; they are carnivorous,
 and would rather have picked out the 1 eyes of Elijah, whom they found at 1 the mouth of his cave on the side of l Cherith waiting for his breakfast, hay ing drunk his morning beverage from
 the rushing stream beneath, than have
 been his buffers and purveyors.
 But God compelled them, as he al
 ways has compelled and always will 1 compel black and cruel and overshad-
 owing providences to carry help to his
 children if they only have faith enough
 to aatch the blessing as it drops from
 the seeming adversity, the greatest
 blessing always coming not with white
 wings but black wings Black wings
 of conviction, bringing pardon to the
 sinner. Black wings of crucifxion
 over Calvary, bringing redemption for
 the world. Black wings of American
 revolution, bringing free institutions to
 continent Black wings of American
 civil war, bringing unification and soH-
 darity to the republic. Black wings of
 the Judgment day, bringing resurrec- | UOA tO bu 0IlIO1AOou llulud1l IctC6. fALu
 in the last day, when all your life and
 mine will be summed up, we will find
 that the greatest blessings we ever re-
 ceived came on the wings of the black
 ravens of disaster Bless God for trou-
 blel Bless God for sickness! Bless
 God for persecution! Bless God for
 povertyl You never heard of any man
 or woman of great use to the world
 who had not had lots of trouble. The
 diamond must be cut; the wheat
 must be thres,led: L.. black ravens