Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1892-06-16

something IN the demeanoE aver AFTER that
seems to say, II would not do you. harm;
indeed, wish you well, bus that unfortu.
nate affair can never pass out of my mind ~
There may no hard words pass between
them, but until death breaks in the same
eooiness remains. But God lets our pan
doned Otfenses go into oblivion. He never
throws them up to us again. He feels as
kindly toward us as though we had been
spotless and positively angelic all along.
STORY OF THE PRAIRIE
Many years ago family. consisting Of
the husband and wife and little girl of two
years, lived far oub in cabin on a western
prairie. The husband took ~ few cattle to
market. Before he started his little child
asked him to buy for her a doll, and be
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 towhich he went
he sold the cattle and, obtained the gro
eeries for his household and the doll for
his little darling. He started home along
the dismal road at nightfall-
As he went along on horseback a thun.
derstorm broke, and in the most lonely
part of the road and in,the heaviest part of
the storm he heard a 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 of the cattle sold The herdsman
first thought it was a stratagem to have
him halt and be despoilhd of his treasures
but the child's cry became more keen and
rending, and so he dismounted and felt
around in the darkness and all in vain, un.
til he thought of a hollow that he remem.
bered near the road where the child might
be and for that he started, and sure enough
found little one tagged out and drenched
of the storm and almost dead. He wrapped
it up as we'll as he could, and mounted his
horse and resumed his journey home.
Coming In sight of his cabin, he saw it
all lighted up and supposed his wife had
kindled all these lights so as to guide her
husband 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 e child he had found in the
fields, and, lo it was his own child and the
lost one of the prairie home, and the cabin
quaked with the shout over the lost one
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 and congratula-
tion 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 tyrant and oppressor, an autocrat, a
Mana Sahib, an Omnipotent Herod Antipas.
1t is libel against the Almighty; it is a
slander against the heavens; it is defama-
| tion of the infinities.
counted in my Bible 304 times the word
"mercy," single or compounded with
other words. l counted in my Bible 47S
times the word "love," single or COM
pounded with other words. Then I 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 benevo-
lence and sympathy and bounteousness and
fatherliness and motherliness and patience
and pardon of our God.
| Thapa in =
that their pronunciation thrills all who
hear it. Such is the name of the italian
soldier and liberator, Garibaldi. Marching
with his troops he met a shepherd who was
in great distress because he had lost q
lamb. Garibaldi said to his troops, "Let
us help this poor shepherd find his lamb. y
And SO, with lanterns and torches, they
| explored the mountains, but did not find
| the lamb, and after an unsuccessful search
late at night they went to their encamp
ment. The next morning Garibaldi was
found asleep far on into the day, and they
Weakened him for some purpose and found
that he had not given up the search when
the soldiers did, but had kept on still far
ther into the night and had found it, and
he pulled down the blankets from his
couch and there lay the lamb, which Carl
baldi ordered Immediately taken to its
owner.
So the Commander of all the hosts ot
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 progenitor, 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 illustrious leader
came all the way down, and by the time
his errand is done our little world, oul
wandering and lost world, our world feecy
with the light, will be found in the bosom
of the Great Shepherd, and then all HEAVIER
will take up the cantata and sing, "Tht
lost sheep found"
ALL ARE INVITED.
So set open the wide gate of my text
inviting you all to come into the mercy
and pardon of God; yea, still further, into
the ruins of the place where once was kept
the knowledge of your iniquities. The
place has been torn down and the records
destroyed, and you will find the ruins
more dilapidated and broken and prostratt
than the ruins of Melrose or Kenilworth
for from these last ruins you can pick vi
some fragment Of sculptured stone or yoI
can see the curve of some broken arch, bu
after your repentance and your forgiveness
you cannot find in all the memory of Coz
a fragment Of all your pardoned sins 81
large as needles point. "Their sins ant
their iniquities will 1 remember no more.
And none of that will surprise you i
you will climb to the top of a bluff bacl
of Jerusalem Gt took us only five or tel
minutes to climb it), and see what wen
on when the plateau of limestone wa
shaken by paroxysm that set the rocks
which had been upright, aslant, and O.
the trembling crosspieces of the split lum
Der hung the quivering form of him who's
life was thrust out by metallic points o
cruelty that sickened the noonday sun til