The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-09-29

| them wrote it. God wrote the Penta-
touch and in this day of stenography
and typewriting that ought not to be a
difficult thing to understand The
great merchants and lawyers and edi-
tors and business men of our towns and
cities dictate nearly all their letters;
they only sign them after they are
dictated. The prophet and evangelist
and apostle were Jehovah's steno-
graphers and typewriters- They put
only what God dictated; he signed it
afterward. He has been writing his
name upon it all through the vicissi-
tudes of centuries.
But l come to the height of my sub
ject when say the way to reinforce
our faith is to pray for it. So the dis
ciples IN my text got their Astounding
faith: lord, increase our faith"
Some one suggests: ''Do you really
think that prayer amounts to any
thing?" might as well ask you is
there a line of telegraphic poles from
New York to Washington, is there
line of telegraphic wires from Man
chester to London. from Cologne to
Berlin. As those people who have sent
and received messages on those lines
know of their existence, SO there
are millions of souls who have been
in constant communication with the
capital of the universe, with the throne
of the Almighty, with the great God
himself, for years and years and years.
There has not been day when supple
cations did not fash up and blessings
did not flash down. viii some igno-
ramus, who has never received a tele-
gram or sent one, come and tell us that
there is no such thing as Geographic
communication? Will some one who
has never offered a prayer that was
heard and answered come and tell us
that there is nothing in prayer? 1t
may not come as we expect it, but as
sure as an honest prayer goes up a mer-
ciful answer will come down.
During the blizzard of four or five
years ago, you know that many of the
telegraph wires were FRUSTRATED, and l
telegraphed to Chicago by the way of
Liverpool, England, and the answer,
after awhile, came round by another
wide circuit, and so the prayer we offer
may come back in a way We never
imagined, and if we ask to have our
faith increased, although it may come
by a widely different process than that
which we expected, our confidence will
surely be augmented. Oh, put it in
every prayer you ever make between
your next breath and your last gasp:
| Lord, increase our faith"-faith in
Christ as our personal ransom from
| present guilt and eternal catastrophe.
Faith in the omnipotent Holy Ghost.
| Faith in the Bible, the truest volume
ever dictated or written or printed or
read. Faith in adverse providences, har-
monized for our best welfare. Faith in
| Judgment day that will set all things
right which have for ages been
wrong. Increase our faith, not by a
| fragile addition, but by an infinitude
of recut eration. Let US do as we saw
it done in the country while we were
yet in our teens, at the old farm house,
after a long drought, and the well had
Dried, and the cattle moaning with
! thirst at the bars, and the meadow
brook had ceased to run, and the grass
withered and the corn shriveled up,
and one day there was growl of thun-
der, and then congregation of clouds
on the sky, and then startling flash,
and then a drenching rain, and father
and mother put barrels at every spout
at the corners of the house, and set
pals and buckets and tubs and pans
and pitchers to catch as much as they
could of the shower. For in many of
our souls there has been 4 long drought
of confidence, and in many no faith at
all Let us set out all our affections,
all our hopes, all our CONCENTRATIONS,
all our prayers to catch a mighty
shower Lord, increase our faith"
What frightful time we had few
days ago down on the coast of Long
Island, where l have been stopping.
That archangel of tempest, which,
with its awful wings, swept the At
lantic coast from Florida to Newfound
land, did not spare our region. A few
miles away, at Southampton, l saw the
bodies of four men, whom the storm
had slain and the sea had cast up. AS
| stood there among the dead bodies, l
said to myself, and said aloud: These
men represent homes" Some of the
then and wonder now if they will re-
main unknown, and If some kindred
far away may be waiting for their
coming and never hear of the rough
way of their going. l saw also one of
the three who had come in alive, but
more dead than alive. The ship
had become helpless six miles out,
and as one wave swept the deck
and went down on the furnaces till
they Kissed and went out, the cry was:
''Oh, my God, we are lost.' Then the
crew put on life-preservers, one of the
sailors saying to the other: 1--WE will
meet again on the other shore, and, il
not, well, we must all go sometime
OF the twenty-three men who put on
the life-preservers only three lived to
reach the beach. But what scene il
was as the good and kind people OF
Southampton led on by DIR. Thomas.
stood watching the sailors struggling
in the breakers Who should do ths
most for the poor fellows and how to
resuscitate them, were the q uestions
that ran up and down the beach at
Southampton, and so much money was
sent for the clothing and equipment of
the unfortunates that DR.. Thomas had
to make proclamation that no more
money was needed. In other words,
all that day it was resuscitation.
And that is the appropriate word for
us this morning, as we stand and look
off upon this awful sea of doubt and
unbelief on which hundreds are this
,noments beinp wrecked Some of them
were launched by Christian parentage