Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1892-07-22

| SpOIleSS ana dugSIlc 2It along
| Many years ago a family. consisting of
the husband and wife and little girl OF two
| years, lived far out in a cabin on a western
prairie The husband took few cattle I'd
| market. Before he started his little child
| asked him to buy for her a doll and NJ
| promised. He could after the sale of the
! cattle purchase household necessities, and
| certainly would not forget the doll he had
, promised In the village 70 which he went
| he sold the cattle and obtained the groceries
| for his household ami the doll for his little
| darling He started home along the dismal
| road at nlghttaD.
As he went along on horseback a thunder
| storm broke, and in the most lonely part
| OF the road, and in the heaviest part or the
| storm, he heard child cry. Robbers had
been known to do some bad work along that
road, and it was known that this herdsman
had money with him, the price or the cattle
sold. The herdsman first thought 1t was
stratagem to have him halt and be despoiled
Of his treasures, but the child's cry became
more keen and rending, and so he dlsmounted
and felt around in the darkness aud all IN
vain until he thought of a hollow that be
remembered near the road where the child
might be, and for that he started, and sure
enough found a little one tagged out and
drenched of the storm and almost dead.
He wrapped it up well as he could and
mounted his horse ana resumed his journey
home. Coming in sight OF his cabin he saw
kindled all these lights SO as to guide her
husOqnt through the darkness. But. no.
The house was full of excitement and the
neighbOrs were gathered and stood around
the wife OF the house, who was insensible as
from some great calamity. On inquiry the
returned husband found that the little child
of that cabin was gone. She had wandered
out to meet her father and get the present
he had promised. and the child was lost.
Then the father unrolled from the blanket
&L,oo oh 1a hol ~, +ha SalN and ~
it was his own child and the lost one of the
prairie home, and the cabin quaked with the
shout over the lost found.
How suggestive of the fact that once we
were lost in the open fields or among the
mountain crags, Gods wandering children,
and He found us dying in the tempest and
wrapped US in the mantle of His love and
fetched us home gladness AMI congratula-
ton bidding us welcome. The fact is that
the world does not know God, or they would
all flock to Him. Through their own blind
ness or the fault of some rough preaching
that has got abroad in the centuries, many
men and women have an idea that God is a
tyrant, an oppressOr, an autocrat, Mana
Sahib, an omnipotent Herod Antipas. 1t is
a libel against the Almighty; it is a SANDER
against the heavens; it is a defamation
of the infnites.
| counted in my Bible 3)4 times the worl
mercy" single or compounded with other
words. counted in my Bible ALB times the
other words. Then 1 got tired counting.
Perhaps you might count more. being better
at figures. But the Hebrew and the Greek
and the English languages have been taxed
Till they cannot pay any more tribute to the
love and mercy and kindness and grace and
charity and tenderness and friendship and
benevolence and sympathy and bount9ous-
ness and fatherliness and motherliness and
patience and pardon of our God.
There are certain names SO magnetic that
their pronunciation thrills all who hear it.
Such is the name of the Italian So der and
lberator, Garibaldi. Marching with his
troops he met shepherd who was in great
distress because he had lost lamb. Carl
baldi said to his troops: ''Let us help this
poor shepherd find his lamb" And SO, with
mountains, but did not find the lamb, and
after an unsuccessful search late at night
they went to their encampment.
The next morning Garibaldi was found
asleep far on into the day, and they
Weakened him for some purpose and found
that he had rot given up the search when
the soldiers did, but had kept on still farther
into the night and had found il, and he pulled
DOWN the blankets from his couch and there
lay the lamb, which Garibaldi ordered i'm
mediately taken to it's owner. So the Com
mander of all the hosts of heaven turned
aside from His glorious and victorious
march through the centuries Of heaven and
said: II will go and recover that lost world,
and that race of whom Adam was the pro-
genitor, and let all who will accompany
Me-"
And through the night they came, but
do not see that the angelic escort came any
farther than the clouds, but their most illus
trious Leader came all the way down, and by
the time His errand is doue our little world,
our wandering and lost world our world
feecy with the light will be found in the
bosom of the Great Shepherd, and then all
heaven will take up the cantata and sing:
The lost sheep is found" So 1 set open the
wide gate of my text, inviting you all to
come into the mercy and pardon of God; yea,
where onca was kept the knowledge of your
iniQuities
The place has been torn down and the
records destroyed. and you will fn1 the
ruins more dilapidated and broken and
PROSTATE than the ruins of Melrose or Kenil-
worth, for from these last ruins you can pick
up some fragment of sculptured stone or
you can see the curve Of some broken arch,
but after your repentance and your forgive
ness you cannot find in all the memory of
God fragment of all your pardoned sins so
large as needles point. Their sins and
their iniquities will I remember no more"
And none of that will surprise you if you
will climb to the toc Of a bluff back of Jeru-
salem lit took US only five or ten minutes to
climb it, and see what went on when the
plateau OF limestone was shaken by par
oxysm that set the rocks, which had been
upright, aslant and on the trem bling cross
pieces of the split lumber hung the quivering
form Of Him whose life was thrust out by
metallic points of cruelty that sickened the
monday sun till it tainted and fell back on
the black lounge of the Judean midnight.
Six different kinds of sounds were heard
on that night which was interjected into the
daylight OF Christ's assassination. The