The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1892-10-28

miSht nhu MS parents. Ills mother WI
in the room and rose and recognized | /,
long lost son. Do you say that the.
things only happened so?' Tell that /
those who do not believe in a God, al,
have no faith in the Bible. Do not te
it to me. said to an aged minister c
much experience: "All the events of n
life seem 10 have been divinely COZ
nected. Do you suppose it is so in a.
livesT He answered, "Yes, but mos
people do not notice the divine leadings.
stand here this morning to say froI
my own experience that the safest thin
in all the world to do is to trust til
Lord, Inever had O misfortune or
persecution or trial or disappoint
ment, however excruciating at the time
that God did not make turn out for IN,
good, My one wish is to follow tn
divine leading. Iwant to watch tn
finger of God.
A NATIONAL APPLICATION.
Nations also would do well to wat (!
for the finger of God. What does tn,
cholera scare in America mean? Som
say it means that the plague will SWEEP
our land next summer. l do not believ,
a word of it. There will be no choler,
here next summer. Four or five sum
mers ago there were those who said i
would surely be here the following sum
mer because it was on. the way. But il
did not come. The sanitary precaut!ors
established here will make next summer
unusually healthful. Cholera never
starts from where it stopped the season
before, but always starts in the filth o.
Asia, and if it starts next summer il
will start there again-it will not start
from New York quarantine. But it Is
evident to me that the finger of God is il
this cholera scare, and that he is point.
ing this nation to something higher and
better. 1t has been demonstrated as never
before that we are in the hands of God.
He allowed the plague to come to our
very gates, and then halted it. The
quarantine was right and necessary, bu.
oh, how easily the plague could have
leaped the barriers lifted against it!
Thanks to the president of the United
States, and thanks to the health officers,
and thanks to the Thirteenth regiment,
and thanks to all who stood between this
evil and our national health, but more
than all and higher than all thanks to
God! Out Of that solemnity we ought
to pass up to something better than any
thing that has ever yet characterized us
as nation. We ought to quit our ma
tional sins, our Sabbath breaking, and
our drunkenness, and our impurities, and
our corruptions of all sorts as people.
The tendency is in self graduation at our
prosperity to forget the mercy Of God
that has kept us from being blotted out
for our crimes, and that still multiplies
our temporal properties. Forward and
upward! See you not the finger of God
in this protecting mercy
1rejoice that there are many encour-
aging signs for our nation, and one is
that this presidential campaign has less
and abuse than any presiden-
tial campaign since we have been ma
ton. Turn over to the pictorials and
the columns Of the political sheets of
the presidential excitements all the way
back and see what contumely Washing
ton and Jefferson and Madison and Mon
roe and jackson went through. Now
see the almost entire absence of all that.
The political orators, notice, this year
are apt to begin by eulogizing the hon
esty and good intentions of the opposing
and say that he is better than
his party. Instead of vitriol, camomile
flowers. That we seem to have escaped
the degradation of the usual quadrennial
billingsgate is an encouraging fact. Per-
haps this betterment may have somewhat
from the sadness lowering over
The home of one of the candidates, sad
ness in which the whole nation sympa-
.hizes. Perhaps we have been SO alb
sorbed in paying honors to Christopher
Columbus that we have forgotten to
the prominent men Of the
present. No man in this country is fully
honored until he is dead. Whatever be
the reason, this nation has escaped many
Of the horrors that ordinarily accompany
the presidential contest. But let us not
pause too long in hilarity about the pres
emit and forget the fact that there are
not only temporal possibilities far great
Or than those attained, bat higher moral
and religious possibilities. The God of
our fathers is the God of their children,
and his finger points us to higher ma
tional career than many have yet sus-
pected. For our churches, our schools,
our colleges, our institutions of mercy,
5he best days are yet to come.
ONWARD THE wATCHwQRD.
But notice that this finger of God al
most always and in almost everything
points forward and not backward. All
he way through the Bible the lamb and
pigeon on the altar, the pillar of fire
poised above the wilderness, peace offer
ng, sin offering, trespass offering, fin
gers of Joseph and Isaac and Joshua and
David and Isaiah and Micah and Ezekiel,
vi together made the one finger of God
to the human, the divine, the
gracious, the glorious, the omnipotent,
he gentle, the pardoning and suffering
md atoning Christ And now the same
niger of God is pointing the world up
ward to the same Redeemer and for
ward to the time of his universal domi-
nation. My hearers, get out of the habit
If looking back and looking down, and
ook up and look forward. It is useful
,nce in awhile to look back, but you had
better for the most part of your time
top Renaissance and begin anticipa-
ion. We have none of us hardly be-
run yet. If we love the Lord and trust
finland you may all love him and trust
lin from this moment on-we no more
understand the good things ahead of us
han child at school studying his A B
can understand what that has to do
With his reading John Ruskin's ''Seven
lamps of Architecture" or Dantes ''Di-
ina Commedia." The satisfactions and
oys we have IS yet had are like the
music boy makes with his first lesson
N the violin compared with what was
voked from his great orchestra by my
lear and illustrious and transcendcnt
tut now departed friend, Patrick Gill
more, when he lifted his baton and all
he strings vibrated, and all the trum-
'ets pealed forth, and all the flutes car
led, and all the drums rolled, and ell |
he hoOfs of tho covo1rp cho,oo ,,-l;.l |