Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1892-12-10

Her arm Il:l1, l1gIi- IGusc,ea TOR lls c0l-
fict against misfortune. hunger. and
/ poverty and want, and all the other
/! jackal4 Rizpah scares from the rock. (
TEE PATIENT, ToILEG MOTHER.
/ saw one in desolate home. Tier
merciless companion had pawned even
the childrens shoes FOR rum. From hon.
orable ancestry she had come down to
this. The cruise of oil was empty and
the last candle gone out. Her faded
frock was patched with fragments of
antique silk that she had worn on the
bright marriage day. Confident in God,
she had a strong heart, to which her
children ran when they trembled at the
staggering step and quailed under ia
theirs curse. Though the heavens were
filled with fierce wings and the thickets
CRASHED with rage, Rizpah watched
faithfully day after day and year after
year, and wolf and cormornnt by her
God strengt hened arm were hurled down
/ the rocks.
You pass day by day along streets
where there are heroines greater than
Joan Of Arc Upon that cellar floor
there are conflicts rs fierce as Sedan,
and heaven and hell mingle in the fight.
Lifted in that garrett there are tribunals
where more fortitude il demanded than
was exhibited by Lady jane Grey OF
Mary, queen of Scots.
Now l ask, if mere natural courage
can do so much, what may we not expect
of women who have gazed on the great
sacrifice, and who are urged forward by
all the voices of grace that sound from
the Bible and all the notes of victory
that speak from the SKYE Many years
ago the Forfarshire steamer started from
Hull bound for Dundee. After the YES
sci had been out little while the winds
began to rave and, pillows rise until a
tempest was upon them. The vessel
leaked, and the fires went out, and though
the sails were hoisted fore and aft she
went speeding toward the breakers. She
struck with her bows foremost on the
rock. The vessel parted. Amid the
whirlwind and the darkness all were lost
but nine. These clung to the wreck on
the beach.
Sleeping that night in Longstone
lighthouse was q girl of gentle spirit
and comely counterance. AS the morn
ing dawns see that girl standing
amid the spray and turlult of contend
ing elements looking through q glass
upon the wreck ard the nine wretched
sufferers. She proposes to her father to
take boat and put ont across the wild
sea to rescue them. The father says:
1T cannot be done! Just look at the
tumbling surfr' But she persisted, and
with her father bounds into the boat.
Though never accustomed to plying the
oar, she takes one and her father the
other. Steady now! Pull away! Pull
away!
The sea tossed up the boat as though
it were bubble, butamid the foam and
the wrath of the sea the wreck was
reached, the exhausted people picked up
and saved. Humane societies rendered
their thanks. Wealth poured into the
| lap of the poor girl. Visitors from all
lands came to look on her sweet face,
and when soon after she launched forth
on a dark sea, and Death was the oars
man, dukes and duchesses and mighty
men sat down in tears in Alnwick castle
to think they never again might see the
face of Grace Darling.
TILE BATTLE WITH SIN.
Nosuch deeds of daring will probably
be asked of you, but hear you not the
howl of that awful storm of trouble and
sin that hath tossed ten thousand shiy-
cred hulks into the breakers? Know
you not that the whole earth is strewn
with the shipwrecked-that there are
wounds to be healed and broken hearts
to be bound and drowning souls to DE
rescued? Some have gone down, and
you come too late, but others are cling
ing to the wreck, are shivering with the
cold, are strangling in the wave. are
crying to you for deliverance. VIII
you not, oar in hand, put out today
from the lighthouse?
When the last ships timber shall have
been rent, and the last Longstone bea-
con shall have been Numbered down in
the hurricane, and the last tempest shall
have folded its wings, and the sea itself
shall have been licked up by the tongue
of all consuming fire, the crowns of eter-
nal reward shall be kindling into bright
er glory on the brow Of the faithful.
And Christ. pointing to the inebriate
that You reformed, and the dying sinner
whom you taught to pray, and the out
cast whom you pointed to God for shell
ter, will say: 'tYou did it to theml
You did it to mer'
Again, the scene of the text impresses
upon us the strength Of maternal attach
ment. Not many men would have had
courage or endurance for the awful
mission of Rizpah. To dare the rage of
wild beasts, and sit from May to Octo-
Der unsheltered, and to watch the corpses
of unburied children, was a work that
nothing but the maternal heart could
have accomplished. 1t needed more
strength than to stand before opened
batteries or to walk in calmness the deck
of laundering steamer.
There is no emotion so completely M
selfish as maternal affection. Conjugal
love expects the return Of many kind
nesses and attentions. Filial love cz-
poets paternal care or is helped by the
memory of past watchfulness. But the
strength of mothers love is entirely
Independent of the past ard the future,
and is, of all emotions, the purest. The.
child has done nothing in the past to:
earn kindness. and in the future it may,
grow up to maltreat its parent, but still
from the mothers heart there goes,forth
! inconsumable affection.
Abuse cannot offend it; neglect can
rot chill it; time cannot efface it; death
cannot destroy it. For harsh words it
has gentle Gliding; for the blow it has