The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1892-06-08

kindly toward us as though we had been
spotless and positively angelic all along
A STORY OF The PRAIRIE.
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 a few cattle TO
market. Before he started his little child
asked him to buy for her a doll, and he
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
ceries for his household and the doll for
his little darling. HI 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 il was known that
this herdsman had money with him. the
price of the cattle sold. The herdsman
first thought it was a stratagem 10 have
him halt and be despoiled 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, I'M
til he thought of 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 upas well 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 .lsat 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 the child he had found in the
fields. and, 10! ii 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 cra9s, 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 10 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,
Mana Sahib, an Omnipotent Herod Antipas.
It is libel against the Almighty; it is "A
Islander against the heavens; it is defama-
ton of the infnities.
1 counted in my Bible S04 times the word
mercy" single or compounded with
other words | counted in my Bible 473
times the word love-" single or com
pounded with other words. Then l 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.
There are certain names so magnetic
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 n shepherd who was
in great distress because he had lost
lamb. Garibaldi said TO his troops, LET
us help this poor shepherd find his lamb"
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 it's
owner
So the Commander of all the hosts Of
heaven turned aside from his glorious and
victorious march through tie centuries of
heaven and said, Il will 60 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, our
wandering and lost world, our world fleecy
with the light. win be found in the bosom
of the Great Shepherd, and then all heaven
will take up the cantata and sing, THE
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 PROSTATE
than the ruins of Melrose or henilworth,
for from these last ruins you can pick up
some fragment of a sculptured stone or you
can see the curve of some broken arch. but
after your repentance and yourforgiveness
you cannot find in all the memory of God
fragment of all your pardoned sins so
large as a needles point Their sins and
their iniquitias will / remember no more"
And none of that will surprise you if
you will climb to the top of a bluff back
of Jerusalem Gt took us only five or ten
minutes TO climb it), and see what went
on when the plateau of limestone was
shaken by paroxysm that set the rocks,
which had been upright, aslant, and on
the trembling crosspieces of the split lum-
Der 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
nei1hin0 of the war horses for some of the