News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1893-08-24

naJnlGS
nesses, about the genial considerations
of him.
Does sorrow come to our home and Is
there a shadow on the cradle, there are
hundreds of hands to help, and many
who weary not through the long night
watching, and hundreds of prayers 60
ing ND that God would restore the SICK.
Is there burning, trimming cup OF Ca
lamity placed on the pastors table, are
there not many to help him to drink OF
that cup and who will not be comforted
because he is stricken? Oh, for some
body to write book about the rewards
of the Christian minister-about his sur
roundings of Christian sympathy!
This woman of the text was only
TYNE of thousands of men and women
who come down from the mansion and
from the cot to do kindness to the Lords
servants. suppose the men of Shunem
had to pay the bills, but it was the large
hearted Christian sympathies of the
women of Shunem that looked after the
Lords messenger.
Again, this woman in the text was
great in her behavior under trouble.
Her only son had died ON her lap. A
very bright light went out in that house
hold. The sacred writer puts it very
tersely when he says, ''He sat ON her
the writer goes on to say that she ex
knees until noon, and then he died." Yet
claimed, sit is wellr' Great in prosper
ity, this woman was great in trouble.
THE SAHARA OF SORROW.
Where are the feet that have not been
blistered on the hot sands of this great
Sahara? Where are the shoulders that
| have not been bent under the burden of
( grief? Where is the ship sailing over
CLASSY sea that has not after awhile been
| caught in cyclone? Where is the gar
den of earthly comfort but trouble hath
hitched upits fiery and painting team and
| gone through it with burning plowshare
of disaster? Under the pelting of ages
of suffering the great heart of the world
| has burst with woe.
Navigators tell us about the rivers, and
the Amazon and the Danube and the
Mississippi have been explored, but who
can tell the depth or length of the great
river of sorrow made up of tears and
blood rolling through all lands and all
ages, bearing the wreck of families and
of communities and of empires-foam-
ing, writhing, boiling with the agonies
of 5000 years? Etna and Cotopaxi and
Vesuvius have been described, but who
has ever sketched the volcano of suffer
ing retching up from its depths the lava
and the scoria and pouring them down
the sides to whelm the nations? Oh, if I
could gather all the heartstrings, the
broken heartstrings, into harp 1 would
play on it a dirge such as was never
sounded.
Mythologists tell US of Gorgon and
Centaur and Titan, and biologists tell US
of extinct species of monsters, but great
er than Gordon or megatherium, and
not belonging to the realm of fable, and
not of an extinct species, is monster
with iron jaw and iron hoofs walking
across the nations, and history and po-
etry and sculpture, in their attempt to
sketch it and describe it, have seemed to
sweat great drops of blood.
CHRISTIAN FoRTITUDE.
But, thank God, there are those who
can conquer as this woman of the text
conquered and say: cit lis well! Though
my property be gone, though my chill
dren be gone, though my home be broken
up, though my health be sacrificed, it is
well, it is wellE' There is no storm on
the sea but Christ is ready to rise in the
hinder part of the ship and hush it.
There is no darkness but the constella-
lions of Gods eternal love can illumin9
it, and though the winter comes out of
the northern sky you have sometimes
seen the northern sky all ablaze with
auroras that seem to say: Come up this
way. Up this way are thrones of light,
and seas Of sapphire, and the splendor of
an eternal heaven. Come up this way"
We may, like the ships, by tempest be tossed
On perilous deeps, but cannot be lost
Though satan enrage the wind and the tide,
The promise assures US the Lord will provide.
I heard an echo of my text in a very
dark hour, when my father lay dying,
and the old country minister said to him,
''AIr. Talmage, how do you feel now as
you are about to pass the Jordan of
death?" He replied-and it was the last
thing he ever said-'I feel we'll; feel
very well; all is WELL" lifting his hand
III a benediction, speeches. benedic-
ton, which I pray God may go down
through all the generations. 1t is well!
OF course it was well.
Again, this woman of my text was
great in her application to domestic du-
ties. Every picture is home picture,
whether she is entertaining an Elisha, or
whether she is giving careful attention
to her sick boy, or whether she is appeal
ing for the restoration of her property
every picture in her case is a home sic
ture. Those are not disciples of this
Shunemite woman who, going out to at
tend to outside charities, neglect the duty
of home-the duty of wife, of mother, Of
daughter. No faithfulness in public ben
efaction can ever atone for domestic neg
hgence.
There has been many a mother who
by indefatigable toll has reared a large
family of children, equipping them for
the duties of life with good manners and
large intelligence and Christian princi- |
pie, starting them out, who has done
more for the world than many another
woman whose name has sounded through |
all the lands and through all centuries
remember when Kossuth was in this |
country there were some ladies who got |
reputation, honorable reputation, by pre-
oCAt4IS Hill very SIdCelllly Will DOu
quets of flowers ON public occasions, but |
what was all that compared with the |
work of the plain Hungarian mother |
who gave to truth and civilization and |
the cause of universal liberty Kossuth? |
Yes, this woman of my text was great in |
her simplicity.
HUMILITY.
When the prophet wanted to reward her
for her hospitality by asking some pref
erment from the king, what did she
say? She declined it. She said: 81 dwell
among my own people," as much as to
say: II am satisfied with my lot All !
want is my family and my friends around
me. Idwell among my own people," Oh,
what rebuke to the strife for precedence
in all ages!
How many there are who want to get
great architecture and homes furnished
with all art, all painting, all statuary,
who have notenough taste to distinguish
between gothic and byzantine, and who
could not tell figure in plaster of paris
from Palmers white Captive" and
would not know a boys penciling from
B1erstadts Yosemite"-men who buy
large libraries by the square foot, buying
these libraries when they have hardly
enough education to pick out the day Of
the almanac! Oh, how many there are
striving to have things as well as their
neighbors, or better than their neigh.
bors, and in the struggle vast fortunes
are exhausted and business firms thrown
into bankruptcy, and men Of reputeG
hon faesfrr Il l.