The Portland daily press., 1892-12-10

AS~N
never trilled with sorrow? What lordly
nature hath never leaned against carved
pillar and made utterance of woe? Gail
is not less better when quaffed from a
golden chalice than when taken from q
pewter mug. Sorrow is often attended
by running footmen and laced lackeys
mounted behind. Queen Anne Boleyn
is desolate in the palace of Henry VIII.
Adolphus wept in German castles
over the hypocrisy of friends. Pedro |
among Brazilian diamonds shivered with
fear of massacre. Stephen of England
sat ON a rocking throne. And every
mast of pride has bent in the storm, and
the highest mountains of honor and fame
are covered with perpetual snow. Sick
ness will frost the rosiest cheek, wrinkle
the smoothest brow and stiffen the
sprightliest step. Rizpah quits the court
ly circle and sits on the rock.
Perhaps you look back upon scenes
different from those in which now from
day to day you mingle. You have ex-
changed the plenty and luxuriance of
your fathers house for privation and
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 jackals from
the thicket. You stand amid your
slain anguished and woe struck. Riz-
pah on the rock.
oft has been in all ages. Vashti must
dof the spangled robes of the Persian
court and go forth blasted from the pal
ace gate. Hagar exchanges oriental
comfort for the wilderness of Beer
sheba. Mary, queen Of Scots, must pass
out from fattery and pomp to suffer
ignominious death in the castle of Foth
eringay. The wheel of fortune keeps
turning, and mansions and huts ex-
change, and he who rode the chariot
pushes the barrow, and instead of the
glare of festal lights Is the simmering
of the peat fire, and in place of Saul's
palace is the rock-the cold rock, the
desolate rock.
A VERY PRESENT HELP IN TIME OF
IhOCbLE
But that is the place to which GOO
comes. Jacob, with his head on stone,
saw the shining ladder. Israel in the
desert beheld the marshaling of the fiery
baton. John on barren Patmos heard
trumpeting, and the clapping Of wings,
and the stroke of seraphic fingers on
golden harps, and nothing but heavenly
strength nerved Rizpah for her appalling
mission amid the scream of wild birds
and the stealthy tread of hungry mon
sters. The grandest visions of glory, the
most rapturous experiences of Christian
love, the greatest triumphs of grace have
come to the tried, and the hard pressed,
and the betrayed, and the crushed. God
STOPPING down from heaven to comfort
Rizpah on the rock.
AgAn, the tragedy Of the text dis
plays the courage of woman amid great
emergencies. What mother or sister or
daughter would dare to go out to fight
the cormorant 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 enterprises. And she is often
troubled lest there might be occasions
demanding fortitude when she would
fail. Not so. Some of those who are
afraid to look out of the door after night
fall, and who quake in the darkness at
the least uncertain sound, and who start
at the slam of the door and turn pale
in thunderstorm, if the day of trial
came, would be heroic and invulnerable.
God has arranged it so that that wom-
an needs the trumpet Of some great con-
test Of principle or affection to rouse up
her slumbering courage. Then she will
stand under the crossfre of opposing
hosts at Chalons to give wine to the
wounded. Then she will carry into
prison and dark lane the message of sal
walton. Then she will brave the pesti-
lence. Deborah goes out to sound ter
ror into the hearts of Gods enemies.
Abigail throws herself between raiding
party of Infatuated men and her hus-
bands vineyards. Rizpah fights back
the vultures from the rock.
Among the Orkney islands an eagle
swooped and lifted a child to its eyrie
far up on the mountains. With the
spring of panther the mother mounts
hill above hill, crag above crag, height
above height, the fire of her own eye
publishing 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 through
my hearth The crowd parted, and link
ing 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 been
killed. She snatched a match from the
hand of dead artilleryman and fired off
a 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