The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1891-02-04

| those intruders who come with pale faces
and stories Of distress and subscription
| papers. The reasonthat God planted these CO.
| dnrsin the Bible was to suggest to us that we
ought, in our religious character. to be deep
like the cedar, high like the cedar,
broad branched as the cedar. A
traveller measured the spread ofthe boughs
! of one of these trees and found it one hun
dred and eleven feet from branch tip to
branch tip, and have seen cedars OF Chris.
tian character that through their prayers
and charities put out Dne branch to the ut
termost parts of AAerica, and another
branch to the uttermost parts OF Asia, and
these wide branched Christians will keep on
multiplying until all the earth is oyershad-
owed with mercy.
But mark you, these cedars Of Lebanon
could not grow if planted in mild climates
and in soft air and in carefully watered gar
dens. They must have the gymnasium OF
the midnight hurricane to develop their
arms. They must play the athlete with a
thousand winters before their feet are right
ly planted and their foreheads rightly
lifted and their arms rightly muscled. And
if there he any other way for developing
strong Christian character except by storms
of trouble, never heard of it. Call The roll
of martyrs, call the roll of the prophets.
call the roll of the apostles and see which OF
them had an easy time oft: Which OF these
them. Honeysuckles thrive best on the south
side Of the house. but cedars in Syrian
whirlwind.
Men and women who hear this or read
this, instead OF your grum bling because you
have it hard, thank God that yon are in Just
the best school for making heroes and hero
ines. 1t is true both for this world and the
next. Rock that babyin a cradle cushioned
and canopied graduate him from that into
a costly high chair and give him O gold
! spoon; send him to school wrapped in furs
enough for an Arctic explorer; send him
through college whore he will not have to
study in order to get u diploma because his
fnther is rich; start him in a profession
where he begins with an Office, the floor GOV.
cred with Administer, and library Of books
in Russia morocco. and an armed chair up
holstered like throne, and an embroidered
ottoman upon which to put his twelve. e.uollar
CATERS, and then lay upon his table the hest
ivory cigarhoder YOU can import from
Brussels and have standing obtside his door
pranclnG span that won the prize at the
horse fair, ann leave him estate enough in
dependent of all struggle, and what will be.
come of him? If he do not die early Of inan-
ition or dissipation he will live useless life,
and die an unlamented death, and go into
q FOOLS eternity.
a Lebanon cedar! John Milton on his
way up to the throne of the worlds sacred
poesy must sell his copyright o. PARADISE
Lost" for S72 in three payments And
William Shakespeare on his way up to be
acknowledged the greatest dramatist Of oil
ages must ho'd horses at the door of the
London theatre for siXpence, and Homer
must struggle through total blindness to
immortality, and John Bunyan must cheer
himself on the way up by making flute
out Of his prison stool, and Canova, the
sculptor, must toll OIL through orphanage
modelling a lion in butter before he could
cut his statues in marble. And the great
Stephenson must watch cows in the field
for few pennies and then become stoker,
and a!terward mend clocks before he puts
the locomotive on its track and calls forth
plaudts from parliaments and medals
from kings. Abel Stevens is picked up a
neglected child Of tn street, and rises
through his consecrated genius to be one
OF the most illustrious clergymen and his
torians Of the century. And Bishop James
of the same church in boyhood worked his
passage from Ireland to America, and up
to a usefulness where, in the bishopric he
was second to no one who ever adorned it.
While in banistment Xenophon wrote his
GAuabasis" and Thucydides his "Bistory
OF the Peloponnesian War;" and Victor
Hugo must be exiIed for many years to the
island Of Guernsey before he can come to
that height in the affections OF his country
mHu GudU CTOWilS SHutupo SceS uuu UA0
adjoining boulevards with one million
mourners rs his hcarse rolls down to the
Church Of the Madeleine. Oh, it is tough
old world, and it will keep you back and
keep you down and keep you under as long
as it can! Hail SONS and daughters of tho
fire!
Thirty years from now the foremost men
I in oil occupations and professions will be
those who are this hour in awful struggle Of
early life many Of them without five dollars
to their name. So in spiritual life it takes
course of bereavements, persecution, sick
nesses and losses to develop stalwart Chris.
tian character. / got O letter a few days
ago saying: "Ihare hardly Seen u we'll day
since was born, and could not write my
own name until was 80 years Of age, and
am very poor; but am, by the grace Of
God, the happiest man in Chicago"
The Bblo speaks OF the SHOWS ofLebanon,
and at this season of the year the SHOWS
there must be tremendous. The deepest
snow ever seen in America would beinsgnifi-
cant compared with the mildest winter of
SHOWS on those Lebanon mountains. The
cedars catch that skyful OF crystals on their
brow and on their long arms Piled up in
great heaps are those SHOWS, enough to crush
other trees to the ground, splitting the
branches from the trunk and leaving them
rent and torn never to rise. But what do
They look up to the winter skies and say:
"Snuw on! Empty the white heavens upon
us, and when This storm is passed let other
professions OF tempest try to bury u3 IN
their fury. We have for five hundred winters
been accustomed to this, and for the next
five hundred winters we will cheerIully take
all you have tosend for that is the way we
develop our strength. and that is the way we
serve God and teach all ages how to endure
o,,1 ~ ~, I cat {In01 rhppr tn all
people who are showed unde! Put your
faith in God and you will come out glori-
ousy Others may be stuntcd growths, or
weak jumpers on the lower Levels Of spirit
uality, but you are going to be Lebanon ce-
dars. At last it will be said of such
rs you. "These arc they who came out OF
great tribulaton and had their robes
washed and made white i'll the blood OF
the lamb"
But while crossing over these mountains
of Lebonon ] bethink myself OF what m
exciting scene it must be when one OF the
cedars does fall. 1t does not SO down like
other trees with n slight Cracke that
hardly makes the woodsman look up, or a
hawk futter from a neighboring bough.
When cedar falls it is tho great event in
the calendar OF the mountains. The axmen
fly. The wild beasts sink to their dens.
The partridges swoop to tie valley for es-
cape. The neighboring trees go down under
the awful weight of the descending monarch.
The rocks are moved out of their places.
and the earth trembles as from miles around
all ravincs send back their sympathetic
echoes. Crash! crash! crash! So when the
great cednrs of the worldly or Christian
influence fall it is something terrific. Within
the past few years how many mighty and
overlapping mJ1 have gone down! There
seems now to be an epidemic ofmornl disaster