Arizona republican., 1892-11-20

our environments we have no more re. sponsibility than we have for the mol lusks at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean. Oh, am so glad that there are about five hundred thousand things that we are not responsible for! Do not blame us for being in our manner cold as an iceberg or nervous as cat amid pack of Fourth of July frecrackers. If you are determined to blame somebody blame our great-grandfathers or great grandmothers who died before the Revo- lutionary war, and who may have had habits depressing and ruinous. There are wrong things about us all which make me think that one hundred and fifty years ago there was some terrible crank in our ancestral line. Realize that and it will be a relief semi-infinite. Let us take ourselves as we are this mo- ment, and then ask which wayy" Get all the direction you can from careful and constant study of the Bible, and then look up and look out and look around and see if you can find the finger of God
 IlNCOl.N WISE DELAY,
 1t is remarkable thing that some. times uo one can see that finger but yourself, A year before Abraham Lin coin signed the proclamation of enamel. 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 scoff 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 Confederatcs. 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 a fool. Nearly all the mistakes that you anI | hp,fn a1a hax,a from r following the pointing of some other fin ger instead of the finger of God. But, now, suppose all forms of disaster close in upon a man. Suppose his business collapses. Suppose he buys goods and cannot sell them. Suppose by a new in- vention others can furnish the same goods at less price. Suppose cold spring or late autumn or the coming of an epidemic corners man, and hi' 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 ul and struggles on until after awhile crash goes the whole concern.
 BETTER TREASURES THAN MONEY.
 He stands wandering and saying: "l do not see the meaning of all this. have done the best could. God knows | 1 would pay my dgbts if I could, but here 1 am hedgef in and stopped What should that man do in that casei Go to the Scriptures and read the promise about all things working to, gether for good and kindred passagesj | That is well. 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 iG 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 $10O,OOO or after he loses it. If a man has plenty of railroad securitie; and has applied to his banker for more if the lots he bought have gone up fifty per cent. in value; if he had hard work to get the door of his freproof safe shut because of a new roll of securities he put in there just before locking up al night; if he be speculating in falling market or rising market and things take for him right turn, he does mol grow in grace very much that week. Dc you know what made the great reviva | of 1857, when more people were con verted to God, probably, than in any year since Christ was born? It was tho defalcatious and bankruptcy that swep American prosperity so flat that it could fall no fatter. am speaking of whole souled men. Such men are so broker by calamity that they are humbled ant fly to God for relief. Men who have nc spirit and never expect anything are no much affected by financial changes | They are as apt to go into the kingdom