Connecticut western news., 1892-10-27

yourself. A year before Abraham Lin- coin signed the proclamation of emanci- patton the White House was thronged with committees and associations. minis ters and laymen, advising the president to make that proclamation. But he wait ed and waited, amid scof and anathema, because he did not himself see the finger of God. After awhile, and at just the right time, he saw the divine pointing and signed the proclamation. The dis tinguished Confederates, Mason and Slidell, were taken off an English vessel by the United States government. Don't give them up," shouted all the northern states. "Let us have war with England rather than surrender them," was the al- most unanimous cry of the north. But William H. Seward saw the finger of God leading in just the opposite direc- tion, and the Confederates were given up and we avoided war with England, which at that time would have been the demolition of the United States govern ment. In other words, the finger of God as it directs you may be invisible to everybody else. Follow the divine point ing as you see it, although the world may call you fool. There has never been a man or woman who amounted to any thing that has not sometimes been called fool. Nearly all the mistakes that you and have made have come from our following the pointing of some other fin ger instead of the finger of God. But, now, suppose all forms of disaster close in upon man. Suppose his business collapses. Suppose he buys goods and cannot sell them. Suppose by new in vention others can furnish the same goods at less price. Suppose cold spring or a late autumn or the coming of an epidemic corners man, and his notes come due and he cannot meet them, and his rent must be paid and there is nothing with which to pay it, and the wages of the employees are due and there is nothing with which to meet that obligation, and the bank will not discount, and the business friends to whom he goes for accommodation are in the same predicament, and he bears up and struggles on until, after awhile, crash goes the whole concern.
 BETTER TREASURES THAN MONEY.
  do not see the meaning of all this. l have done the best could. God knows would pay my debts if could, but here I am hedged in and stopped ; What should that man do in that case? Go to the Scriptures and read the promise about all things working to- gether for good and kindred passages? That is we'll But he needs to do some thing besides read the Scriptures. He needs to look for the finger of God that is pointing toward better treasures; that is pointing toward eternal release; that is urging him to higher realms No human finger ever pointed to the east or west or north or south so certainly as the finger of God is pointing that troubled man to higher and better spiritual re- sources than he has ever enjoyed. There are men of vast wealth who are as rich for heaven as they are for this world, but they are exceptions. If man grows in grace, it is generally before he gets $100,000 or after he loses it. If a man has plenty of railroad securities and has applied to his banker for more; if the lots he bought have gone up fifty h to get the door of his fireproof safe shut because of new roll of securities he put in there just before locking up at night; if he be speculating in falling market or a rising market and things take for him 8 right turn, he does not grow in grace very much that week. Do you know what made the great revival of 1857, when more people were con verted to God, probably, than in any year since Christ was born? It was the defalcations and bankruptcy that swept fall no fatter. am speaking of whole souled men. Such men are so broken by calamity that they are humbled and fly to God for relief Men who have no spirit and never expect anything are not much affected by financial changes. : They are as apt to go into the kingdom under one set of circumstances as an- other. They are deadbeats wherever they are. The only way to get rid of them is to lend them dollar and you will never see them again. l have tried that plan and it works well. But am speaking of the effect of misfortune on
 
 will turn such men from earth to heaven. It is only through clouds and darkness and whirlwind of disaster such man can see the finger of God.
 MERCIES NOT ACCIDENTS.
 A most interesting as we'll as a most useful study is to watch the pointing of the finger of God. In the Seventeenth century South Carolina was yielding rosin and turpentine and tar as her chief productions But Thomas Smith noticed that the ground near his house in Charleston was very much like the places in Madagascar where he had raised rice, and some of the Madagascar rice was sown there and grew so rapidly that South Carolina was led to make rice her chief production. Can you not see the finger of God in that incident? Rev. John Fletcher, of England, many will know, was one of the useful ministers of the Gospel who ever preached. Be- fore conversion he joined the army and had bought his ticket on the ship for South America. The morning he was to sail some one spilled on him a kettle of water, and he was so scalded he could not go. He was very much disappoint- ed, but the ship he was going to sail on went out and was never heard of again. Who can doubt that God was arranging the life of John Fletcher? Was it merely accidental that Richard Rodda, Cornish miner, who was on his knees praying, remained unhurt, though heavy stones fell before him and behind him, and on oithar side of him opd opotbor fell on top of these so as to make a roof over him?
 A missionary in Jamaica lost his way, and in the night was wandering about, when frefiy flashed and revealed precipice over which in moment more he would have been dashed. F. w.