Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1893-08-26

pitality when shown in the house OF
God. am thankful that am pastor
of church where strangers are al
ways welcome, and there is not state
of the union in which have not heard
the affability of the ushers OF our
church complimented. But have en-
tered churches where there was no
hospitality. A stranger would stand
in the vestibule for awhile and then
make pilgrimage up the long aisle
No door opened to him, until flushed
and excited and embarrassed he started
back again, and coming to some half
filed pew with apologize air, entered
it, while the occupants glared on him
with look which seemed to say:
well, if must, must" Away with
such accursed indecency from the
house of God. Let every church that
would maintain large Christian influ-
ence in community, culture Sabbath
by Sabbath this beautiful grace of
Christian hospitality.
Again, this woman in my text was
great in her kindness toward Gods
messenger Elisha may have been a
stranger in that household, but as she
found out he had come on q divine
mission, he was cordially welcomed.
We have great many books in our
day about the hardships of ministers
and the trials of Christian ministers. /
wish somebody would write book
about the joys of the Christian minis
ter, about the sympathies all around
him, about the kindnesses, about the
genial considerations of him. Does
sorrow come to our home, and is there
shadow on the cradle? There are
hundreds of hands to help, and many
who weary not through the long night
watching, and hundreds of prayers 60
ing up that God would restore the sick.
Is there II burning, trimming cup OF
calamity placed on the pastors table,
are there not many to help him drink
of that cup and who will not be COM
forted because he is stricken? Oh, for
somebody to write n book about the
rewards of the Christian ministry
about his surroundings of Christian
sympathy.
This woman of the text was only
type of thousands of men and women
who come down from the mansion and
from the cot to do kindness to the
Lords servants. ! suppose the men of
Shunem had to pay the bills, but it was
the large hearted, Christian sympathies
of the women of Shunem that looked
after the Lords messenger.
Again, this woman in the text was
great in her behavior under trouble.
Her only son had died on her lap. A
very bright light went out in that
household. The sacred writer puts it
very tersely when he says: HE sat on
her knees until noon, and then he died"
Yet the writer goes on to say that she
exclaimed: at is we'll" Great in
prosperity, this woman was great in
trouble.
Navigators tell us about the rivers,
ind the Amazon and the Danube and
the Mississippi have been explored, but
who can tell the depth or length of the
great river of sorrow made up of tears
and blood rolling through all lands and
all ages, bearing the wreck of families
and of communities and of empires
foaming. writing, boiling with the
agonies of 5000 years. Etna and Coto-
paxi and Vesuvius have been described.
but who has ever sketched the volcano
of suffering retching up from its depths
the lava and the scoria and pouring
them down the sides to whelm the ma
tions? Oh, If | could gather all the
heart strings, the broken heart strings
into harp would play on it Il dirge
such US was never sounded.
Mythologists tell us of Gorgon and
Centaur and Titan, and biologists tell
us of extinct species of monsters; but
greater than Gorgon or Megathereum,
and not belonging to the realm OF fable,
and not of an extinct species, is mon
ster with iron jaw and iron hoofs walk
ing across the nations. and history and
poetry and sculptor in their attempts
to sketch it and describe it have seemed
to sweat great drops of blood.
But, thank God, there are those who
can conquer as this woman of the text
conquered, and say: ut is we'll! though
my property be gone, though my chill
dren be gone, though my home be
broken up, though my health be sacri-
feed, it is well, it is WELT" There is no
storm on the sea but Christ is ready to
rise in the hinder part of the ship and
hush it. There is no darkness but the
consultations of Gods eternal love can
illuminate it, and though the winter
comes out of the northern sky, you
have sometimes seen the northern sky
all ablaze with auroras that seem to
say: ''Come up this way; up this way
are thrones of light and seas of sap
phire, and the splendor of an eternal
heaven. Come up this way"
We may, like the ships, by tempest be tossed
On perilous deeps, but cannot be lost:
Though Satan enrage, the wind and the tide
n