The Globe-republican., 1892-12-23

trials known to 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 carrion birds from the sky
and barked like jacka.s from the thicket.
You stand amid your slain anguished
and woe struck. RiZpah on the rock.
Again the tragedy Of the text displays
the courage of woman amid great emer-
gencies. What mother or sister or daugh-
ter would dare to go out to fight the cor
morant 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 enter
prises. And she is often troubled lest
there might be occasions demanding forth
tude when she would fail Not so Some
Of those who are afraid to look out OF
door after nightfall, and who quake In
the darkness at the least uncertain sound,
and who start at the slam Of the door
and turn pale in a thunderstorm, il the
day Of trial came. would be heroic and
invulnerable.
God has arranged it so that woman
needs the trumpet OF some great contest
OF principles or affection to rouse up her
slumbering courage. Then she will stand
under the cross fire Of opposing hosts at
Chalons to give wine to the wounded.
Then she will carry into prison and dark
lane the message Of salvation. Then she
will brave the pestilence. Deborah goes
out to sound terror into the heart OF
Gods enemies. Abigail throws herself
between q raiding party OF Infatuated
men and her husbands vineyards. Riz-
pah fights back the vultures from the
rock.
Among the Orkney Islands an eagle
swooped and lifted child to its eyrie far
up on the mountains. With the spring
of a panther the mother mounts hill
above kill. crag above crag. height above
height. The fire Of her own eye out
flashes the glare of the eagles, and with
unmailed hand stronger than the iron
beak and the terrible claw she hurls the
wild bird down the rocks! In the French
Revolution Gazette was brought out to
be executed, when his daughter threw
herself on the body OF her father and
said: Strike, barbarians! You cannot
reach my father but though my heart"
The crowd parted, and linking arms
father and daughter walked out free.
During the siege Of Saragossa Angus
tina carried refreshments to the gates.
Arriving at the battery OF POrtillo she
found that all the garrison had teen
killed. She snatched match from the
hand of dead artilleryman and fired off
q twenty-six FOUNDER, then leaped on it
and vowed she would not leave it alive.
The soldiers looked in and saw her dar-
ing and rushed up and opened another
tremendous fire on the enemy.
You know how calmly Nine. Roland
went to execution, and how cheerfully
Johanna Of Naples walked to the castle
of Muro and how fearlessly Nine Grim
adj listened to her cOndemLa alton, and
how Charlotte COrday smiled upon the
frantic mob that pursued her to the gull
lotine. And there would be no end to the
recital if attempted to present all the
historical incidents which show that wo-
mans courage will rouse itself for great
emergency.
But need not go so far. You have
known some one who was considered a
mere butterfly in society. Her hand had
known no toll; her eve had wept no
tear over misfortune. She moved among
obsequious admirers as careless as an
insect in a field of poisoning buck
wheat But in eighteen hundred and
sixty-seven financial tempest struck the
husbands estate. Before he had time to
reef sail and make things snug the ship
capsized and went down. Enemies
cheered at the misfortune and wondered
what would become of the butterfly.
Good men pitied and said she would die
of broken heart
''She will not work." say they, ''and
she is too proud to beg" But the proph-
ecies have failed. Disaster has trans
formed the shining sluggard into a prac-
tical worker. Happy as princess
though compelled to hush her own child
to sleep, and spread her own table, and
answer the ringing of her own door-bell,
Her arm had been muscled for the con-
f1ict against misfortune. Hunger and
poverty and want and all the other
jackals Rizpah scarcs from the rock.
saw one in q desolate home. Her
merciless companion had pawned even
the children's shoes for rum. From hon.
ora BILE 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 an
tique silk that she had worn on the
bright marriage day. Confident in God,
she had q strong heart to which her
children ran when they trembled at the
staggering step and quailed under a 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 cormorant by her God
strengthened arm were hurled down the
rock.
You pass day BY day along the streets
where there are heroines greater than
Joan Of Arc. Upon that cellar floor
there are conflicts as fierce as Sedan,
and Heaven and hell mingle in the fight
Lifted in that garnet there are tribunals
where more fortitude is demanded than
was exhibited by Lady Jane Grey or
Mary, queen OF Scots.
Now ask. II mere natural courage
can do much. what may we not expect
of women who have gazed on the grea
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 sky? Many years
ago the ForfarShire steamer started from