The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-10-13

| and those who could not survive till
they reached port, were put down aulid
iridescence-''In the midst of the gar
den there was a sepulcher." 1t has al
ways been mystery what was the
particular mode by which George G..
Goodman, the pulpit orator of the
Methodist church and the chaplain of
the American congress, left this life
after embarking for England on the
steamship President, March IL, 1S4l.
That ship never arrived in port. But
this / do know about Goodman, that
whether it was iceberg, or confagra-
ton mid-sea, or collision, he had more
| garlands on his ocean tomb than if, ex-
piring on land, each of his million
friends had put bouquet on his casket.
In the midst of the garden was his
sepulcher.
But that brings me to notice the
misnomer in this Jonahitic expression
of the text. The prophet not only
made a mistake by trying to go to
| Tarshish when God told him to go to
| Nineveh, but he made mistake when
he styled as weeds these growths that
enwrapped him on the day he sank. A
weed is something you throw out from
the garden. 1t is something that
chokes the wheat 1t is something to
! be grubbed out from among the cotton.
1t is something unsightly to the eye.
1t is an invader of the vegetable or
floral world. But this growth that
sprang up from the depth of the Medi-
terranean, or fioated on its surface, was
| among the most beautiful things that
God ever makes. 1t was water
plant known as the red-colored
Alga, and no weed at all 1t
comes from the loom of infinite
beauty. 1t is planted by heavenly
love. 1t is the star of sunken firma-
ment 1t is a lamp which the Lord
kindled. 1t is cord by which to bind
whole sheaves of practical suggestion.
1t is a poem all of whose cantos are
rung by Divine goodness. Yet we all
make the mistake that Jonah made in
regard to it, and call it weed. 1.-The
weeds are wrapped about my head"
All! that is the trouble on the land as
on the sea. We call those weeds that
are flowers. Pitched up on the beach
of society are children without home,
without opportunity for anything but
sin, seemingly without God. They are
washed up helpless. They are called
ragamuffins. They are spoken of as
the rakings of the world. They are
waits. They are street Arabs. They
are hotsam and jetsam of the social
sea. They are something to be left
alone, or something to be trod on, or
something to give up to decay. Moth
ing but weeds. They are up the rick
ETY. stairs of that garnet. They are
down in the cellar of that tene-
ment house. They swelter in sum-
mers where they see not one
blade of green grass, and SILVER in
winters that allow them not one warm
coat or shawl or shoe. Such the city
missionary found in one of our city
rooberies, and when the poor woman
was asked if she sent her children to
school, she replied: mo, sir, / never
did send 'em to school. know it, they
ought to learn, but 1 couldn't. try
to shame him sometimes (it is my hus-
band, sir), but he drinks and then beats
me, and tell him to see what is comm
to his children. There's Peggy, goes
sellin' fruit every night in those cellars
in Water street, and they're hells, sir.
She's learning all sorts of bad words
there, and don't get back till IL o'clock
at night. If it wasn't for her earnin'
shillin' or two in them places, should
starve. Oh, wish they was out of the
81 &c I
rather have all my children dead than
on the street, but l can't help it" An
other one of those poor women, found
by reformatory association, recited
her story of want and woe, and looked
up and said: 81 felt so hard to lose the
children when they died, but now I'm
glad they're gone" Ask any one of
thousand such children on the streets:
where do you live?" and they
will answer: 81 don't live nowhere"
They will sleep tonight in ash-barrels,
or under outdoor stairs, or on the
wharf, kicked and bruised and hungry.
Who cares for them? Once in n while
a city missionary or a tract distributor
or a teacher of ragged schools will res
cue one of them, but for most people
they are only weeds. Yet, Jonah did
no more completely misrepresent the
Red Alga about his head in the Med
iterranean than most people misjudge
these poor and forlorn and dying chill
dren of the street. They are not weeds.
They are immortal flowers Down in
the deep sea of woe, but flowers When
society and the church of God come to
appreciate their eternal value there
will be more c. L. Braces and more
Van Meters and more angels of mercy
spending their fortunes and their lives
in the rescue. Hear it, oh, We philau-
thropic and Christian and merciful
souls; not weeds, but flowers. 1 ad-
jure you as the friends of all newsboys'
lodging houses, of all industrial schools,
of all homes for friendless girls, and
for the many reformatories and hui
name associations now on foot. How
much have they already accomplished?
Out of what wretchedness, into what
good homes Of q, 900 of these picked
up out of the street and sent into
country homes, only twelve children
turned out badly. In the last thirty
years a number that no man can num-
Der of the Migrants have been lifted
into responsibility and usefulness and
Christian life. Many of them have
homes of their own. Though ragged
boys once and street girls, now at the
head of prosperous families, honored
on earth and to be glorious in Heaven.
Some of them have been governors of
states Some of them are ministers of
the gospel In all departments of life
those who were thought to be weeds
have turned out to be flowers. My
hearers, implead you for the news
boys of the street, many of them the