Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1892-10-24

of John FletcherP Was it merely acct
dental that Richard Rodda a Cornish
MINER who was on his knees praying, re
manned unhurt though heavy stones fell
before him and behind him and on either
side of him and another fell on the top Of
| these so as to make roof over him?
A missionary in Jamaica lost his way
and in the night was wandering about
when FREELY flashed and revealed preci
! pice over which in moment more he
| would have been dashed. +. w. Robert
son, the great preacher of Brighton, Eng
land, had his life work decided by the bark
ing OF his dog. a neighbor, whose daughter
was ill, was disturbed by the barking Of
that dog one night. This brought the
neighbor into communication with Robert
SON. That acquaintanceship kept him
| from joining the dragons and going to In
dia and spending his life in military serv.
ice, and reserved him for pulpit the in.
fuence of which for Gospelization will
resound for all time and all eternity.
Why did not Columbus sink when In
early manhood he was a1oat six miles
from the beach with nothing TO sustain
him till he could swim to land but boat S
oarf wonder if his preservation had any
thing to do with America. Had the storm
that diverted the Mayfower from the
mouth of the Hudson, for which it was
sailing, and sent it ashore at Cape Cod, no
divine supervisalP Does anarchy rule
this world, or GodP
So Felix escaped martyrdom by crawl
ing through hole in the wall across
which the spiders Immediately afterward
wove o web. His prosecutors saw the hole
! In the WALL but the SPIDERS web put them
off the track. A boy was lost by his
drunken father and could not for years
find his way home. Nearly grown he went
into a Fulton street prayer meeting and
asked for prayers that he might find his
parents. His mother was in the room and
rose and recognized her long lost son. Do
you say that these things "only happened
sop" Tell that to those who do not believe
In God and have no faith in the Bible.
| Do not tell it to me.
said to an aged minister of much ex-
perience: Cali the events Of my life seem
to have been divinely connected. Do you
suppose 1t is so in all lives ?" He an
| swered, Eyes, but must people do not notice
the divine leadings." / stand here this
morning to say from my own experience
that the safest thing in all the world to do
Is to trust the Lord. / never had a mis-
fortune, or persecution, or trial. or dis
appointment, however excruciating at the
time. that God did not make turn out for
my good. My one wish is to follow the
divine leading. want to watch the finger
Of God.
THE CHOLERA SCARE.
Nations also would do well to watch for
the finger Of God. What docs the cholera
scare in America mean? Some say it
means that the plague will sweep our land
next summer. do not believe a word of
it. There will be no cholera here next
summer. Four or five summers ago there
were those who said it would surely be
! here the following summer because it was
on the way. But it did not come The
sanitary precautions established here will
make next summer unusually healthfui.
| Cholera never starts from where itstopped
the season before, but always starts in the
filth of Asia, and If it starts next summer,
1t will start there again--it will not start
from New York quarantine. But it is evil
dent to me that the finger of God is in this
cholera scare, and that be is pointing this
nation to something higher and better. 1t
has been demonstrated as never before that
we are i'll the hands of God. lie allowed
the plague to come to our very gates and
then halted it.
The quarantine was right and necessary,
but, 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
| % gy,1, tt,.N -,
pass up to something better than anything
that has ever yet characterized us Us n ma
ton We ought TO quit our national sins,
our Sabbath breaking, and our drunken
ness, and our impurities, and our corrup-
tions of all sorts as a 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 prosper
tiles, Forward and upward See you not
the finger of God in this protecting mercy'
l rejoice that there are many cncour.
aging signs for our nation, and one is that
this presidential campaign has less ma
Lightly and abuse than any presidential
campaign since we have been a nation.
Turn over to the pictorials and the col
umns Of the political sheets Of the presi-
dental excitements all the way back, and
see what coutumely Washington and JET
ferson and Madison and Monroe and Jack
son went through. Now see the almost
entire absence of all that. The political
orators notice this year are apt TO begin
by eulogizns the honesty and good inten-
lions of the opposing candidate, and say
that he is better than his party. Instead
of vitrol, camomie flowers That we seem
to have escaped the degradation of the
usual qusdrennial billingsgate is an en-
couraging fact.
Perhaps this betterment may have some
what resulted from the sadness lowering
over the home of one of the candidates.
sadness in which the whole nation sympa.
thizeS Perhaps we have been so absorbed
in paving honors to Christopher Columbus
that we have forgotten to anathematiz6
the prominent men of the present. Nc
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 present and forget the
fact that there are not only temporal pos
sibilities far greater than those attained
but higher moral and religious possibili
ties. The God of our fathers Is the God d
their children, and his finger points us tC
a higher national career than many have
yet suspected. For our churches, oui
schools, our colleges, our institutions OF
mercy, the best days are yet TO come.