The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-11-04

A most interesting, as well as a most
useful study is to watch the pointing
of the finger of God. In the seven
tenth century South Carolina was
yielding resin and turpentine and tar
as her chief productions. But Thomas
Smith noticed that the ground near his
house was very much like the places in
Madagascar where he had raised rice,
and some of the Madagascar rice was
sown there and it grew so rapidly that
South Carolina was led to make rice
her chief production. Can you not see
the finger of God in that incident? Rev.
John Fletcher of England, many will
know, was one of the most useful min
listers of the gospel who ever preached
Before conversion he Joined the army
and had bought his ticket on the ship
for South America. The morning he
was to sail some one spilled on him a
kettle of water and he was so scalded
he could not go. He was very much dis
appointed, but the ship he was going to
sail on went out and was never heard of
again. Who can doubt that God was
arranging the life of John Fletcher?
Was it merely accidental that Richard
Rodda, Cornish miner, who was on
his knees praying, remained unhurt
though stones fell before him and be-
hind him and on either side of him and
another fell on the top of these so as to
make a roof over him?
Why did not Columbus sink when in
early manhood he was afloat six miles
from the beach with nothing to sustain
him till he could swim to land but a
boats oar? l wonder if his preserva-
ton had anything to do with America.
Had the storm that diverted the May
flower from the mouth of the Hudson
for which it was sailing, and sent it
ashore at Cape Cod, no Divine super
visal? Does anarchy rule this world,
or God?
st. Felix escaped martyrdom by
crawling through a hole in the wall
across which the spiders Immediately
afterward wove web. His prosecutors
saw the hole in the wall, but the spi-
ders' 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 Fulton
street prayer meeting and asked for
prayers that he might find his parents.
His mother was in the room and recog-
nized her long lost son. Do you say
these things ''only happened So" Tell
that to those who do not believe in God
and have no faith in the Bible.
Nations also would do well to watch
for the finger of God. What does the
cholera scare in America mean? Some
say that the plague will sweep our land
next summer. do not believe 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 sum-
mer unusually healthful. Cholera
never starts from where it stopped the
season before, but always starts in the
filth of Asia, and if it starts next sum-
mer, it will start there again-it will
not start from New York quarantine
But it is evident to me that the
finger of God is in this cholera scare,
and that He is pointing this nation to
something higher and better. 1t has
been demonstrated as never before that
we are in the hands of God. He al
lowed the plague to come to our very
gates and then halted it. Out of that
solemnity we ought to pass up to some
thing better than anything that has
ever yet characterized us as a nation.
We ought to quit our national sins, our
Sabbath breaking, and our drunken
ness, and our impurities, and our cor
ruptions of all sorts as people.
] rejoice that there are many encour-
aging signs for our nation. and one is
that this presidential campaign has less
malignity and abuse than any presi-
dental campaign since we have been a
nation. Turn over to the pictorials,
and the columns of the political sheets
of the presidential excitements all the
way back and see what contumely
Washington and jefferson and Madi-
son and Monroe and Jackson went
through. Now see the almost entire
absence of all that. The political
orators notice this year are apt to be-
gin by eulogizing the honesty and good
intentions of the opposing candidate,
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
Perhaps this betterment may have
somewhat resulted from the sadness
lowering over the home of one of the
candidates, a sadness in which the
whole nation sympathizes. Perhaps
we have been so absorbed in paying
honors to Christopher Columbus that
we have forgotten to anathematize the
prominent men of the present. No man
in this country is fully honored until he
is dead.
But, notice that this finger of God al
most always and in almost everything
points forward and not backward. All
the way through the Bible, the lamb
and pigeon on the altar, the pillar of
fire poised above the wilderness, peace
offering, sin offering, trespass offering,
fingers of Joseph and Isaac and Joshua
and David and Isaiah and Micah and
Ezekiel, all together made the one
finger of God pointing to the human,
the divine, the gracious. the glorious,
the omnipotent, the gentle, the pardon
ing and suffering and atoning Christ.
And now the same finger of God is
pointing the world upward to the
same Redeemer and forward to the
time of his universal domination. My
hearers, get out of the habit of looking
back and looking down and look up
and look forward. 1t is useful once in
awhile to look back, but you had bet
ter, for the most part of your time, stop
,-nrr,i niscanca and hanin anticinat inn