The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-03-10

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 children 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 GO" My hearers,
if we secure the present and everlast-
ing welfare of our children, most other
things belonging to US are of little COM
parative i'm portance.
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 through! With most
life has been a disappointment; they
tell me SO. They have not at
tanned that which they expected
to attain. They have not had the
physical and mental vigor they eX-
pected, or they have met with rebuffs
which they did not anticipate. You
are not at forty or fifty or sixty or
seventy or eighty years of age where
you thought you would be.
l do not know anyone except myself
to whom life has been 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 sur
prise. 1 was told in the theological
seminary by some of my fellow students
that 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 a happy
surprise.
Hannah Whitall Smith, the evangelist,
took her little child at two years of age
when i'll out of the crib, and told her
plainly of Christ and the child believed,
and gave evidence of joyful trust which
grew with her growth into womanhood.
Two years are not too young. The time
will come when, by the faith of parents,
children viii be born into this world
and born into the bosom of Christ at the
same time
But most people, according to their
own statement, have found life disap-
pointment Indeed we all need shelter
from its tempestS About o'clock on
hot August afternoon you have heard
a rumble that you first took for a wagon
crossing Il bridge. but afterward there
was louder rumbling, and you said,
why, that is thunder! and sure enough
the clouds were being convoBed for
full diapas on. A whole park of artil-
lery went rolling down the heavens
and the blinds of the windows in the
sky were closed. But the sounds above
were not more certain than the sounds
beneath. The cattle came to the bars
and moaned for them to be let
down that they might come home
to shelter, and the fowl, whether
Brahma or Hamburg or Leghorn
or Dominick, began to call to its
young, "Cluckr' "Clucl1!'' ''Cluckr' and
take them under the wagon house or
shed, and had them all hid under the
soft feathers by the time that the first
p'ash of rain struck the roof. SO there
are sudden tempests for our souls, and,
oh. how dark it gets. and threatening
clouds of bankruptcy or sickness or
persecution or bereavement gather and
thiclen and blacken, and some run for
shelter to a bank. but it is poor shell
ter, and others run to friendly advisers
and they fail to help, and others fly no.
where, simply because they know not
where to 20, and they perish in the
blast; but others hear 4 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 un-
der the brooding care of the Almighty
''as a hen gathereth her chickens under
her wing"
The wings of my text suggest warmth,
and that is what most folks want. The
fact is that this is a cold world, whether
you take it literally or fguratively.
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 Arctic is not so destructive
as the Antarctic. Once in awhile the
Arctic will let explorers come back, but
south pole, ship sails in, the door of
ice is almost sure to be shut against
its return. So life to many mil
lions of people at the south and
many millions of people at the north
is a prolonged shiver. But when
l say that this is cold world, chiefly
mean fguratively. If you want to
know what is the meaning of the ordi-
nary term of receiving the ''cold shoul-
DER get out of money and try to bor-
row. The conversation may have been
almost tropical for luxuriance of
thought and speech, but suggest your
necessities and see the thermometer
drop to 50 degrees below zero, and in
that which, till moment before, mad
been a 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 my
self is concerned, l have no word of
complaint, but l look off day by day
and see Communities freezing out men
and women of whom the world is not
worthy. Now it taxes after one and
now after another. 1t becomes popular
to depreciate and defaune and eXecrate
and lie about some people. This is the
best world l ever got into. but it is the
meanest world that some people ever
got into. The worst thing that ever
happened to them was their cradle, and
the best thing that will ever happen to
them viii be their grave. What people
want is warmth Many years ago
man was floating down on the ice of the
Merrimac and great efforts were made
to rescue him. Twice he got hold of
plank thrown to him, and twice he
slipped away from it, because that end
of the plank was covered with ice