The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-03-04
A PROTECTING WING.
Continued from Eleventh Page.

come TO hear me 1t was happy surprise.
But most people, according to their own
statement, have found life disappoint-
ment. Indeed we all need shelter from
it's tempests. About 3 o'clock on a hot
August afternoon you have heard rum
BILE that you first took for wagon cross
ing a bridge, but afterward there was
louder rumbling, and you said. ''Why,
that is thunder" And sure enough the
clouds were being convoked for full
diapason. - whole park of artillery
went rolling down the heavens, and the
blinds of the windows in the sky were
closed. But the sounds above we're not
more certain tEsn the sounds beneath.
The cattle came to the bars and naoaned
for them to be let down that they might
come home to shelter, and the fowl,
whether dark Brahna Or Hamburg or
Leghorn or Dominick, began to cell to its
young, "Clucki" s'Cluck" sCluck!' and
take them under the wagon house or shed,
and had them all hid under the soft
feathers by the time that tie first plash
of rain struck the roof
So there are sudden tempegts for our
souls, and, oh! how dark it gets, and threat
ening clouds of bankruptcy or sickness OF
persecution or bereavement gather and
thicken and blacken, and some run for
shelter to bank, but it is poor shelter,
and others run to friendly advisers. and
they fail to help, and others fly nowhere
simply because they know not where to
go, and they perish in the blast, but
others hear divine call saying, "Come,
for all things are now ready" ''The
spirit and the bride say come" And
while the heavens are laundering terror
the divine voice proffers mercy, and the
soul comes under the brooding care OF
the Almighty "as hen gathereth her
chickens under her wing"
DANGER OF ICY FoRMALTY.
The wings Of my text suggest warmth,
and that is what most folks want. The
fact is that this is cold world whether
you take it literally OF iguratively. We
have big fireplace called the sun, and it
has very hot FIRE, and the stokers keep
the Goals well stirred up, but much of
the year we cannot get near enough to
this fireplace to get warmed. The worlds
extremities are cold all the time. Forget
not that it Is colder at the south pole
than at the north pole, and that the Arc
tic is not SO destructive as the Antarctic.
Once in awhile the Arctic will let ex-
plorers come back, but the Antarctic
hardly ever. When at the south pole
ship sails in, the door of ice is almost sure
to Be shut against its return.
So life to many millions of people at
the south and many millions of people at
the north is a prolonged shiver, but
when I say that this is a cold world I
chiefly mean figuratively. If you want to
know what is the meaning of the ordi-
nary term of receiving the 1scold shout
DER get out of money and try to Dor
row. The conversation may have been
almost tropical for luxuriance Of thought
and speech, but suggest your necessities
and see the thermometer drop to 80 de-
grees below zero, and in that which till
& moment before had been warm room.
Take what is an unpopular position on
some public question and see your
friends fly as chaff before a windmill.
AS far as myself is concerned, [ have
no word of complaint, but I look off day
BY day and see communities freezing out
men and women of whom the world is
not worthy. Now it takes after one and
now after another. 1t becomes popular
to depreciate and defame and execrate
and lie about some people. This is the best
world 1 ever got into, but it Is the mean
est world that some people ever got into.
+1,.xo hot ar IN
them was their cradle, and the best
thing that will ever happen to them will
be their grave. What people want is
warmth.
MANY wears ago man was floating
down on the ice of the Merrimac, and
GREAT efforts were made to rescue him
Twice he Cos hold of plank thrown to
him and twice he slipped away from it,
because that end of the plank was Gov
cred with ice, and he cried out, "For
Gods sake, give me the wooden end Of
the plank this time," and this done he
was hauled to shore. The trouble Is that
in our efforts to save the soul there is
too much GOODNESS and icy fornality,
and SO the imperiled one slips off and
floats down. Give it the other end of the
plank warmth OF sympathy, warmth of
kindly association, warmth Of genial sur
roundings.
The world declines to give it, and in
many cases has no power to give it, and
here is where Christ comes in, and, as on
cold day, the rain beating and the at
1nosphers full Of sleet, the hen clucks
her chickens under her wings, and the
warmth Of her own breast puts warmth
into the weA feathers and the chilled feet
Of the infant group Of the barnyard, SO
Christ says to those sick and frosted and
disgusted and frozen Of the world, Come
il out of the March winds of the worlds
criticism; come in out of the sleet of the
worlds assault; come in out Of a world
that does not understand you and does
not want to understand you; will COM
fo4g and will soothe and will be your
warmth, "as hen gathereth her chick
ems under her wing" Oh, the warm
heart of God is ready for all those to
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