Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-06-16

to-day: The Ihreshing Machine" the text
being from Isa IS: ~, %. For the titches
are not threshed with a threshing instru-
ment, neither is II cart wheel turned about
upon the cummin; but the ttches are
beaten out with a staff, and the cummin
with a rod. Bread corn is bruised: be-
cause be will not ever be threshing it,"
There are three kinds of seed
mentiNned titches, cummin, and corn.
OF the last we all know. But it may
be well to state that the titches and
the cummin were small seeds, like the
carraway or the chiclS-pea. When
these grains or herbs were TO be
threshed they were thrown upon the
floor, and the wOrkmen would come
around with staff or rod or fail, and
beat them until the seed would be
separates; but when the corn was
threshed that was thrown on the floor,
and the men would fasten horses or
oxen TO a cart with iron-dented wheels;
that cart would be drawn around on
the threshing-tloor, and SO the work
would be accomplished. Different
kinds of threshing for different pro-
ducts. 1.-The titches are not threshed
with threshing instrument, neither
is a cart-wheel turned about upon the
cummin; but the fitches are beaten out
with a staff, and the cummin with a
rod. Bread corn is bruised, because he
will not ever be threshing it"
The great thought that the text
presses upon our souls is that we all
go through some kind of threshing
Process. The TACT that YOU may be de-
voting your life to honorable and nob.-,
purposes will not win you any escape.
Wilberforce, the Christian emanc pa
tor, was in his day derisively called
DIR. Cautwell." Thomas darlington
Macaulay, the advocate of all that was
good long before he became the most
conspicuous historian of his day, was
caricGtured in one of the quarterly re-
views as "Babblejo tongue Macaulay."
Norman Mcleod, the great friend OF
the Scotch POOR, was industiiously
maligned in all quarters, although on
the day when he was carried out to his
burial a workman stood and looked at
the funeral procession, and said. "If
he had done nothing for anybody more
than he has done for me- he should
shine as the stars forever and ever"
All the small wits of London had their
fling at John Wesley, the father of
Methodism.
If suth men could not escape the ma
ligning of the world, neither can you
expect to get rid of the sharp, keen
stroNe of the tribulum. All WHO will
live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer
persecution. Besides that, there are
the sicknesses, and the bankruptcies,
and the irritations, and the disappoint-
ments which are ever putting cup OF
aloes to your lip. Those wrinkles on
your face are hieroglyphics, which, |,
deciphered, would make out a thrilling
story of trouble. The footstep of the
rabbit is seen the next morning on the
snow, and on the white hairs of the
aged are the footprints showing where
swift trouble alighted.
Even amid the joys and hi arities of
life, trouble will sometimes break in.
4 when the people were assem- bled in
the Charlestown theater, during the
Revolutionary war, and while they
were witnessing farce, and the audi
ence was in great graduation, the guns
of an advancing army were heard, and
the audience broke up in wild pan c
and ran for heir lives, 500 times while
you are seated amid the joys and fes-
tivities of this world you hear the can
nonade of some great disaster. All
the titches, and the cummin, and the
corn must come down on the threshing
floor I'd be pounded,
My subje t, in the first place, teaches
us that 1T is no compliment to us if we
escape great rial. The fitches and
the cummsn on the threshing floor
m ght look over to the corn on an
other threshing floor and say: Look
at that poor, miserable, bru. sed corn.
We have only been a little pounded
but that has been almost destroyed"
Well. the corn, if it had lips, would
answer and say: "Do you know the
reason you have not been as much
pounded as | have? 1t is because you
are not of so much worth as | am off
you were you would be as severely run
over" let there are men who sup
pose they are the Lords favorites sim
ply because their barns are full, aud
their bank account flush, and there are
no funerals in the house. 1t NAV be
because they are fitches and cummin;
while down at the end of the lane the
poor widow may be the Lords corn.
You are but little pounded because
you are but little worth, and she
bruised and ground because she is the
best part of the harvest.
The heft of the threshing machine is
dCCOTuluB W Jle Vdlue OF Jne grain. III
you have not been much threshed in
life. perhaps there is not much to
thresh If you have not been much
shaken of trouble, perhaps it is be-
cause there is going to be very small
yield. When there are plenty of
black berries the gatherers go out with
large baskets; but when the drought
has almost consumed the fruit, then a
quart measure will do as we'll. IL
took the venomous snake on Paul's
hand and the pounding of him with
stones until he was taken up for dead,
and the jamming against him of
prison gates, and the Ephesiau voci-
feration, and the skinned ankles of
the painful stocks, & nd the laundering
of the Alexandrian corn ship, and the
beheading stroke of the Roman Sheriff
to bring Paul TO his proper develop
ment.
IL was not because Robert Moffat,
and Lady Rachel Russell, and Freder-
lex Oberlin were worse than other
people that they had 10 suffer; il was
becau e they were better, and God
wanted to make them best BY the
carefulness of the threshing you may
always conclude the value of the grain
Next, my text teaches us that God
proportions our tria to what we can
d