Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1892-04-16

tsries that bother others do not bother
me, because ] adjourn them, but the
mystery that really bothers me Is why
God made so many people who amount
to nothing 80 fur as the worlds better
ment is concerned. They stand in the
way. They object. They discuss him
ORANGES. Over the road of life, instead
of pulling in the traces, they are lying
back in the breechings. They are the
everlasting no. They are bramble trees;
they are willows, always mourning; or
wild cherry trees, yielding only the
bitter; or crab apple trees, producing
only the sour, while God would
have us all flourish like the palm
tree. Planted in the Bible that tree
always means usefulness.
Notice that it was beautiful and
lawful robbery of the palm tree that
helped make up Christ's triumph on the
road to Jerusalem that Palm Sunday.
The long, broad, green leaves that were
strewn under the feet Of the colt and in
the way of Christ were torn off from
the trees. What pity, some one might
say, that these stately and graceful
trees should be despoiled. The glory
of the palm tree was appropriately sac
rificed for the Saviour's triumphal pro-
cession. So it always was, so it always
will be in this world-no worthy tri-
umph of any sort without the tearing
down of something else. The greatest
pictures of the world had in their rich
est coloring the blood Of the artists who
made them. American independence
was triumphant, but it moved on over
the lifeless forms of tens of thousands
of forms of men who fell ut Bunker
Hill and Yorktown and the battles
between, which were the hemorrhages
of the nation. The kingdom of
God advances in all the earth, but it
must be over the lives of missionaries
who die of malaria in the jungles, OF
Christian workers who preach and pray
and toll and die In the service. The
Saviour triumphs in all directions-but
beauty and strength must be torn down
from the palm trees OF Christian hero
ism and conservation and thrown in his
pathway. To what better use could
those palm trees on the southern shout
der Of Mount Olivet and clear down into
the valley of Gethsemane put their
branches than surrender them for the
making Of Christ's Journey toward Je-
rusalem the more picturesque. the more
memorable'and the more triumphant?
And to what better use could we put
our lives than into the sacrifice for
Christ and his cause and the happiness
of our fellow creatures? Shall we not
be willing to be torn down that right
eousness shall have triumphant way?
Christ was torn down for us. Can we
not afford to be torn down for Him? If
Christ could suffer SO much for us, can
we not suffer little for Christ?
The process is going on every moment
in all directions. What makes that
father have such hard work to find the
hymn to-day? He puts on his spectacles
and holds the book close up, and then
holds it far off, and il not quite sure
whether the number of the hymn is $50
OF 1870, and the fingers with which he
turns the leaves are very clumsy. He
stoops good deal, although once
straight as an arrow and his eyes were
keen as a hawks, and the hand he Of
fered to his bride on the marriage day
was of goodly shape and as God made it.
l will tell you what is the matter.
Forty years ago he resolved his family
should have no need, and his children
should be well educated and suffer none
of the disadvantages Of lack of schooling
from which he had suffered for a life
time and that the wolf of hunger should
never put It's paw ON his door sill, and
for forty or fifty years he has been
tearing off from the palm tree OF
his physical strength and manly
form branches to throw in the pathway
of his household. 1t has cost him
muscle and brain and health and eye
sight, and there have been twisted of
more years from his life than any man
in the crowd on the famous Palm Sun
day twisted of branches from the palm
trees on the road from Bethpage to
Jerusalem. What makes that mother
look SO much older than she really Is?
You say she ought not yet to have one
gray line in her hair. The truth is the
family was not always SO well off as
now. The married pair had hard
struggle at the start. Examine the tips
of the forefnker and thumb OF her right
hand, and they will tell you the story
of the needle that was piled day in and
day out Yea, look at both her hands, and
they will tell the story of the time when
she did her own work, her own mend
ing and scrubbing and washing. Yea,
look into the face and read the story OF
scarlet fevers and groups and midnight
watchings when none but God and her
self in that house were awake, and then
the burials and the loneliness after
ward, which was more exhausting than
the preceding watching had been, and
no one now to put in bed.
How fair she once was and as grace