The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1892-12-21

the hypocrisy of friends. Pedro |.
among Brazilian diamonds shivered
with fear of massacre. Stephen of En-
gland sat on rocking throne. And
every mast of pride has bent in the
storm, and the highest mountains of
honor and fame are covered with per-
petual snow. Sickness will frost the
rosiest cheek, wrinkle the smoothest
brow and stiffen the sprightliest step.
Rizpah quits the courtly circle and sits
on the rock.
Perhaps you look back upon scenes
different from those in which now from
day to day you mingle. You have ex-
changed the plenty and luxuriance of
your fathers house for privation and
trials known 60 God and your own heart.
The morning of life was flushed with
promise. Troops of calamities since
then have made desperate charge upon
you. Darkness has come. Sorrows have
swooped like carton birds from the sky,
and barked like jackals from the
thicket. You stand amidst your slain,
anguished and woe struck. Rizpah on
the rock.
So it has been in all ages. Vashti
must doff the spangled robes of the Per-
sian courtier and go forth blasted from
the palace gate. Hagar exchanges ORR
entail comfort for the wilderness of Beer
sheba. Mary, Queen of Scots, must pass
out from flattery and pomp to suffer
ignominious death in the castle of Foth-
eringay. The wheel of fortune keeps
turning, and mansions and huts ex-
change, and he who rode the chariot
pushes the barrow, and instead of the
glare of festal lights is the simmering
of the peat fire. and in place of Saul's
palace is the rock, the cold rock, the
desolate rock.
But that is the place to which God
comes. Jacob with his head on stone
saw the shining ladder. Israel in the
desert beheld the marshlling of the
| fiery baton. John on barren Patmos
heard trumpeting, and the clapping of
wings, and the stroke of seraphic fingers
on golden harps, and nothing but heav-
emily strength nerved Rizpah for her APP
palling mission amid the scream of wild
birds and the stealthy tread of hungry
monsters The grandest visions of glory.
the most rapturous experience of Chris
tian love, the greatest triumphs of
grace have come to the tried and hard
pressed, and the betrayed and the
crushed. God stepping down from
Heaven to comfort Rizpah on the rock.
Again: The tragedy of the text dis
plays the courage of woman amid great
emergencies. What mother or sister or
daughter would dare to go out to fight
the cormorant and jackal? Rizpah did
it. And so would you if an emergency
demanded. Woman is naturally timid,
and shrinks from exposure and depends
on stronger arms for the achievement
of great enterprises. And she is often
troubled lest there might be occasions
demanding fortitude when she would
fail. Not so. Some of those who are
afraid to look out of doors after night
fall, and who quake in the darkness a
the least uncertain sound, and AhC
start at the slam of the door, and turf
pale in thunder storm, if the day o.
trial came would be heroic and invul
nerable God has arranged it so tina
woman needs the trumpet of some grea
contest of principle or affection t.
rouse up her slumbering courage. Their
she will stand under the cross fire o
opposing hosts at Chalons to give win'
to the wounded. Then she will carr,
into prison and dark lane the messag,
of salvation. Then she will brave tn,
pestilence Deborah goes out to sount
terror into the heart of Gods enemies
Abigail throws herself between raid
ing party of Infatuated men and he
husbands vineyards. Rizpah fight
back the vultures from the rock.
Among the Okney Islands an eagl,
swooped and lifted child to its eyri
far up on the mountains With tn,
spring of panther the mother mount
hill above hill, crag above crag, heigh
above height, the fire of her own ey
outhashing the glare Of the eagles
And with unmailed hand stronger thai
the iron bealz and terrible claw sh
; hurled the wild bird down the rocks
In the French revolution Gazette wa
brough tout to be exec uted when hi
daughter threw herself on the body @
her father and said: "Strikel barbar
ans! You cannot reach my father bu
through my hearth" The crowd parted
and linking arms father and daughte
walk out free. During the siege G
Saragossa, Augustine carried refresh
ments to the gates, Arriving at tn
battery of Portillo she found that a
the garrison had been killed. Sh
snatched match from the hand of
dead artilleryman and fred off a twenty
six FOUNDER, then leaped on it and vowe
|, she would not leave it alive. The soldier
1 looked in and saw her daring, an
rushed up and opened another tremeI
dous fire on the enemy. The life {
1 James l. of Scotland was threatened
Poets have sung those times, and alb
pens have fingered upon the story {
: manly endurance, but how few to t.,
the story of Catharine Douglas, one {
the queens maids, who ran to bolt tt
door but found the bar had been take
away so as to facilitate the entrance
the assassin. She thrust her arm I'M
the staple. The murderers rushin
against it, her arm was shattered, Y,
how many have since lived and die
: who never heard the touching, self-sa
+ rifcing story of Catharine Douglas an
: her poor, shattered arm. You kno
how calmly Madame Roland went