Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1894-03-02

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yet the character which under God we
form will chisel the face most nightly.
Every man would like TO have been
made in appearance an Alcibiades, and
every woman would like TO have
been made a Josephine. We all
want to be agreeable Our useful
ness depends so much upon it that l
consider it important and Christian for
every man and woman TO be as agree
able as possible, The SLOUGH, the
sloven the man who does not care how
he looks, all such people lack equip
ment for usefulness. minister who
has TO throw quid OF tobacco out of
his mouth before he begins to preach,
or Christians with beard untrimmed,
making them to look like wild beasts
come out of the lair, yea, unkempt,
uncombed, unwashed, disagreeable
men or women, are hindrance to re-
| ligion more than recommendation.
Now, my text suggests how we may,
| Independent of features, make our
selves agreeable: "A mans wisdom
malSeth his face to shine and the sour
ness of his face shall be sweetened."
| What l say may come toe late for
many. Their countenance may by
long years of hardness have oeen fro
zen into stolidity; or by long years of
cruel behavior they may have Herod-
lied all the machinery of expression;
or by long years of avarice they may
have been shyloclSed until their face is
as hard as the precious metal they are
boarding; but | am in time to help
multitudes if the Lord will. That it
| possible TO overcome disadvantages of
physiognomy was in this country
nightly illustrated by one whose life
recently closed after having served in
the presidential cabinet at Washing
ton by accident of fire in child
hood his face had been more pite-
| ously SCARED than any human visage
that l ever saw. by hard study he
rose from being poor boy to the very
height of the legal profession, and
when an Encouragement for the
United States was needed he entered
the presidential cabinet. What tri-
umph over destroyed human counte-
nance! do not wonder that when an
! opposing attorney in Philadelphia
court room cruelty referred to this per-
sonal Disagreement, benjamin +.
Brewster replied in these words:
when l was n babe l was a beautiful
blue-eyed child ] know this because
my dear dead mother told me so; but
l was one day playing with my sister,
when her clothes took fire, and | ran
to her relief and saved her.. but in do
ing so my clothes took fire, and the
fire was not put out until my face
was as black as the heart of the scoun-
| drcl who has just now referred to
my Disagreement" Heroism conquer
ing physical disabilities! That schol-
arly regular features are not necessary
for making powerful impression, wit
ness Paul VINO photographs himself as
in bodily presence weak" and George
Nhitefield, whose eyes were struck
! with strabismus; and Alexander ii.
Stephens, who sat with pale and sick
face in invalid's chair while he thrilled
! the American congress with his elo-
quence; and thousands of invalid
preachers, and Sunday school teachers,
and Christian workers. Aye, the most
glorious being the world ever saw was
foreseen by Isaiah who described his
face bruised, and gashed, and scarified,
and said of him, His visaye was SO
married more than any man" So you
see that the loveliest face in the uni
verse was a SCARED face.
And now i am gong TO tell you of
some of the chisels that work for the
disfiguration or irradiation of the hui
man countenance. One of the sharp
est and most destructive of those
chisels of the countenance is cyni-
cism. That sours the disposition and
then sours the face. 1t gives a con-
temptuous curl to the lip. 1t draws
down the corners of the mouth and in
flates the nostril as with q malodor.
What David said in haste they say in
their deliberation: ''All men are
liars;" everything is going to ruin. All
men and women are bad, or going to
be. Society and the church are on the
down grade. Tell them of an act of
benevolence, and they say he gave
that to advertise himself they do not
like the present fashion of hats for
| women, or of coats for men. They are
opposed to the administration, muni-
cipal, and state, and national Some
how, food does not taste as it used to
and they wonder why there are no
poets, or orators, or preachers as when
they were boys. Even Solomon,
one of the wisest, and at one time one
of the worst, of men, falls into the
pessimistic mood, and cries out in the
twenty-frst chapter of Proverbs, "Who
can find virtuous woman?" If he
had behaved himself better and kept
in good associations, he would not
have written that interrogation point
implying the scarcity of good woman
hood. Cynicism, if n habit, as it is
with ten of thousands of people, writes
itself all over the features; hence so
many sour visages all up and down
the street, all up and down the church
and the world. One good way to
make the world worse is to say it is
worse. Let depressed and forebod-
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