Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1892-01-11

promised, and your neighbor comes In
to tell YOU some fiattering thing he mas
lust heard said about you, ana
Won find that all the styles Of goods IN
which YOU deal have advanced fifteen
per cent in value, and on your way
home you meet your children IN luii
romp and there are roses on the centre
of the tea table and roses OF health IN
cheeks all round the table, what more
do YOU want of consolation? 1 don
pity you bit. You feel as II yon coulu
boss the world. But for those In Juss
opposite circumstances my text comes
In with an omnipotence OF meaning
The shadow! Oh, the shadow! Shadow
of bereavement! Shadow OF sickness:
Shadow Of bankruptcy! Shadow OF
mental depression! Shadow OF perSecu-
ton! Shadow Of death! Speak OUT
Oh, sun-dial OF Ahaz, and tell all the
people that God manages the shadow
AS HEZEKIAH SAT
In his palace window wrapped IN IN
yalidism and surrounded by anodynes
and catapasms and looked out upon
the black hand Of the only clock known
at that time and saw II move back ten
degrees, he learned lesson that ma
iority OF the human race need tnls
hour to learn-that the best friena
man ever had controls the SHADOW.
The set-backs are sometimes the BEST
things that can happen. The great
German author Schiller could not work
unless he had In his room the scent OF
rotten apples, and the decay OF the
fruits of earthly prosperity may be-
come an inspiration instead OF depres-
sion. Robert Chambers lame feet shut
him up from other work, and ne
became the world-renowned pub
Usher, and helped fashion the best
literature OF the ages. The
painful disorder like that OF Heze-
kiah called a carbuncle is spelled exact
ly the same as the precious stone called
the carbuncle, and the pang of suffering
may become the jewel OF immortal value.
Your setback like that Of Ahag's sun
dial may be recovery aud triumph. l
never had a setback but that it turned
out TO be a set forward. You never
would have become Christian II you
had not had setback. The highest
thrones in heaven are for the set-backs.
In 1861 the shadow Of the sun-dial OF
this nation was set back, and all things
seemed going TO ruin, and 1t was set
further iD 1862, and further in 1868, and
still further in 1865, but there is not an
intelligent or well-balanced man, North
or South, East or West, but feels it was
set back towards the sunrise.
SET BACK THE CLOCK
OF human life. Make the shadow OF
the sun-dial Of Ahaz retreat ten de-
grees People make themselves old by
always talking about being old and
wishing for the good old days, which
were never as good as these days. From
all l can hear the grandchildren are not
half as bad as the grandparents were.
Matters have been hushed up. But II
you have ever been ia room adjoining
a room where some very old people, a
little deaf, were talking over old times
you will find that this age does not mo-
nOpOlIZe all the young raScalS. 1t may
now be hard TO get young people up
early enough in the morning, but their
grandparents always had to be pulled
out of bed. 1t is wrong now to play
miSchievOus tricks on the unsuspecting,
but eighty years ago at school that now
venerable man sat down on crooked
pin not accidentally placed there, aud
purpoSely drove the sleigh-riding party
too near the edge Of the embankment
that he might see how they would look
when tumb led into the snow. And that
man who has so little patience with
childish eXuberance was in olden times
up 20 FRANKS one-half of which II prac-
ticed by the eight-year-old Of to-day,
would set grandfather and grandmother
crazy. Revive your remembrance OF
what you were between five and ten
years Of age, and with patience capable
Of everything join with the young. Put
back the shadow Of the dial not ten de-
grees, but fifty and sixty and seventy
degrees.
But while looking at this sun-dial Of
AhaZ / see the shadow OF 1t move.
1 notice that it went back toward the
sunrise instead OF forward toward the
sunset-toward che morning instead Of
toward the night. That thing the world
Is willing now to do, and in many cases
has done. There have great many
things been written and spoken about
the sunset Of life. 1 have said some Of
them myself.
BUT MY TEXT SUGGESTS
a better idea. The Lord who turned
back that day from going toward sun
down and started ii toward sunrise is
willing 70 do the same thing for all OF
US. The theologians who stick to old
religious technicalities until they be-
come soporifiCs would not call it any
thing but conversion. I call IL a change
from going toward shutdown to going
toward sunrise. That man who tries to
the clasp OF evil habit and
who keep all the sins Of the past and the
present freighting him and who ignores
the one redemption made by the only
one who could redeem, il that man will
examine the sun-dial he will find that
the shadow Is going forward and he is
on the way TO shutdown. His day is on
the road to night. All the watches that
tick, all the clocks that strike, all the