Connecticut western news., 1892-12-08

the sky and parked like jackals from the thicket. You stand amid your slain anguished and woe struck. Riz- pah on the rock.
 So it has been in all ages. Vashti must doff 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 hattery 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
 .-.- .- TROUBLE.
 But that is the place to which God 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 stepping 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 jacka? 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 a thunderstorm, if the day of trial came, would be heroic and invulnerable.
 God has arranged it 80 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 cross6re of opposing hosts at Chalons to give wine to the wounded. Then she will carry into prison and dark lane the message of sal vation. Then she will brave the pesti- lence. Deborah goes out to sound ter TOT into the .hearts of Gods enemies. Abigail throws herself between raiding party of infuriated men and her hus- bands vineyards. Rizpah 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 panther the mother mounts hill above hill, crag above crag, height above height, the fire of her own eye outfashing 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 Cazotte was brought out to be executed, when bis daughter threw herself on the body of her father and said: "Strike, barbariansi You cannot reach my father but through my heartr' The crowd parted, and inI ing arms father and daughter walked out free.
 During the siege of Saragossa Angus al fo tD %ha Arriving at the battery of Portillo she found that all the garrison had been killed. She snatched match from the hand of dead artilleryman and fired off twenty-six pounder, 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.
 MADE HEROIC BY LOVE.
 The life of James I of Scotland was threatened. Poets have sung those times and able pens have fingered upon the story of manly endurance, but how few to tell the story of Catharine Doug las, one of the queens maids, who ran to bolt the door, but found the bar had been taken away so as to facilitate the entrance of the assassinl She thrust her arm into the staple. The murderers rushing against it, her arm was shat tered. Yet how many have since lived and died who never heard the touching, self sacrificing, heroic story of Catharine Douglas and her poor, shattered arlnl
 You know how calmly Mime. Roland went to execution and how cheerfully Joanna of Naples walked to the castle of Muro, and how fearlessly Mime. Gri- maldi listened to her condemnation, 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 woman's courage would rouse itself for great emergency.
 But I need not go so far. You have known some one who was considered mere butterfly in society. Her hand had known no toll. Her eye had wept no tear over misfortune. She moved among obsequious admirers as careless as an Insect in field of blossoming buckwheat. But in 1867 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 a broken heart.
 "She will not work" say they, ''and she is too proud to beg" But the prophe cies have failed. Disaster has trans formed the shining sluggard into prac- tical worker-happy as princes, though compelled to hush her own child to sleep apd spread her own table and answer the ringing of her own doorbell. Her arm had been muscled for the con- hict against rnisfortune hunpar and