Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-03-03


beaxs of death ready to plunge, there
are claws of a.lurement ready to clutch.
Now / see the peril. Now l under
stand the urgency. Now / see the
only safety. Would that Christ might
this day take our sons and daughters
into his shelter, ''as hen gathereth
her chickens under her wing" The
fact is, that the most of them will
never find the shelter unless while they
are chickens. II is simple matter of
memorable statistics that most of those
who do not come to Christ in youth
never come at all. What chance is
there for the young without divine
protection? There are the grog shops.
There are the gambling hells. There
are the infidelites and immoralities of
spiritualism. There are the bad books.
There are the impurities. There are
the business rascalities. And so nu-
merous are these assailments that it is
a wonder that honesty and virtue are
not lost arts. The birds of prey, dur
nal and nocturnal, of the natural
world, are ever on the alert. They are
the assassins of the sky. They have
varieties of taste. The eagle prefers
the flesh of the living animal. The
vulture prefers the carcass. The fall
con kills with one stroke, while other
styles of beak give prolongation of
torture. And SO the temptations of
this life are various. Some make
quick work of death, and others agon-
ize the mind and body for many years,
and some like the living blood of great
souls, and others prefer those already
gangrened. But for every style of
youth there is a swooping wing
and a sharp beak and cruel
claw, and what the rising generation
needs is wing of protection. Fathers,
mothers, older brothers and sisters, and
Sabbath School teachers, be quick and
earnest and prayerful and importunate,
and get the chickens under wing. May
the Sabbath Schools of America and
Great Britain within the next three
months sweep all the scholars into the
Kingdom. Whom they have now under
charge is uncertain. Concerning that
scrawny, puny child that lay in the
cradle many years ago, the father dead,
many remarked, "What mercy if the
Lord would take the child" and the
mother really thought so, too, but
what a good thing that God spared
that child, for it became world-re-
nowned in Christian literature, and one
VI NOd . AhOoS AAlhSllAOuS BCINdhbo
John Todd. Remember, your children
will remain children only little
while. What you do for them as chill
dren, you must do quickly, or never
do at all. "Why have you never
written a booI?" said some one to a
talented woman. She replied: 81 am
writing two, and have been engaged
on one work ten years and on the
other five years-my two children.
They are my life-work." When the
house of John Wesley's father burned
and they got the eight chileren out,
John Wesley the last before the roof
fell in, the father said: Let us kneel
down and thank God. The children
are all saved, let the rest of the place
CO." My hearers, if we secure the
present and everlasting welfare of our
children, most other things belonging
to us are of but little comparative inn
portance. Alexander the Great al
lowed his soldiers to take their famil-
les with them to war and he accounted
for the bravery of his men by the faAS
that many of them were born in camp,
and were used to warlike scenes from
the start. Would God that all the
children of our day might be born into
the army of the Lordl No need of let
| ting them go long way on the wrong
road before they turn around and go
on the right road. The only time TO
get chickens under wing is while they
are chickens.
Hannah Whitall Smith, the evange-
list, took her little child at : years of
age whep i'll out of the crib, and told
her plainly of Christ, and the child be-
lieved, and gave evidence of joyful
trust which grew with her growth into
womanhood. Tive years are not too
young. The time will come when by
the faith of parents children will be
born into this world, and born into the
bosom OF Christ at the same time. Soon
we parents will have to go and leave
our children. We fight their battles
now, and we stand between them and
harm, but our arm will after awhile
get weak, and we cannot fight for
them, and our tongue will be palsied
and we cannot speak Tor them. Are
we going to leave them out in the cold
world to take their chances, or are we
doing all we can to get them under tue
wing of eternal safety?
But we all need the protecting wing.
If you had known when you entered
upon manhood or womanhood what
was ahead of you, would you have
dared to undertake life? How much
you have been thronghl With most
life has been a disappointment, they
tell me so. They have not attained
that which they expected to attain.
They have not had the physical and
mental vigor they expected, or they
have met with rcbuffs which they did
not anticipate. l0u are not at forty
or fifty or sixty or seventh or eighty
years of age where you thought you
would be. do not know anyone ex-
cept myself to whom life has been a
happy surprise. / never expected
anything, and so when anything came
in the shape of human favor
or comfortable position or widen
ing field of work, it was TO me a sur
prise. l was told in the theological
seminary by some of my fellow stu
dents that l never would get anybody
to hear me preach, unless l changed
my style, SO that when / found that
some people did come to hear me, it
was happy surprise. But most people
according to their own statement, have
found life a disappointment. Indeed
we all need shelter from its tempests.
About o'clock on hot August after
noon you have heard rumble that you
took for wagon crossing bridge,