Connecticut western news., 1894-02-22


 ever existed at all.
 lam not talking of remarkable men and women, but of what ordinary folka can do. I am not speaking of the phos- phorescence in the wake of a Campania, but of the phosphorescence in the track of Newfoundland fishing smack. God makes thunderbolts out of sparks, and out of the small words and deeds of a small life he can launch a power that will flash and burn and thunder through the eternities.
 How do you like this prolongation of your earthly life by deathless inhuencei Many Q babe that died at months of age by the anxiety created in the parents heart to meet that child in realms se- raphic Is living yet in the transformed heart and life of those parents and will live on forever in the history of that family. If this be the opportunity of or dinary souls, what is the opportunity of those who have especial intellectual or social or monetary equipment?
 Have you any arithmetic capable of es- timating the influence of our good and gracious friend who a few days ago went up to rest-George W. Childs of Phila- delphia? From newspaper that was printed for 30 years without one word of defamation or scurrility or scandal, and putting chief emphasis on virtue and charity and clean intelligence, he reaped a fortune for himself and then distrib- uted a vast amount of it among the poor and struggling, putting his invalid and aged reporters on pensions, until his name stands everywhere for large heart edness and sympathy and help and high est style of Christian gentleman.
 In an era which had in the chairs of it's journalism a Horace Greeley. and a Henry J. Raymond, and James Gordon Bennett, and an Erastus Brooks, and a George William Curtis, and an Henaeus Prime, none of them will be longer re membered than George W. Childs. Stay ing away from the unveiling of the mon ument he had reared at large expense in our Greenwood in memory of Professor Proctor, the astronomer, lest I should say something in praise of the man who had paid for the monument. By all ac- knowledged representative of the high est American journalism.
 If you would calculate his influence for good, you must count how many sheets of his newspapers have been pub lished in the last quarter of a century, and how many people have read them, and the effect, not only upon those read CTS, but upon all whom they shall influ- ence for all time, while you add to all that the work of the churches he helped build and of the institutions of mercy he helped found. Better give up before you start the measuring of the phosphores- cence in the wake of that ship of the Ce- lestial line. Who can tell the post mor- tenn influence of Savonarola, Win kelried, Gutenberg, a Marlborough, a Decatur, Toussaint, Bolivar, a Clark son, a Robert Raikes, Harlan Page, who had 125 Sabbath scholars, 84 of whom became Christians, and six of them ministers of the gospel.
 THE BRIGHT PATH.
 With gratitude and penitence and wor- ship I mention the grandest life that was ever lived That ship of light was launched from the heavens nearly 1900 years ago, angelic hosts chanting. and from the celestial wharves the ship sprang into the toughest sea that ever tossed. Its pillows were made up of the wrath of men and devils, Herodic and sanhedrinic prosecutions stirring the deep with red wrath, and all the hurri- canes of woe smote it until on the rocks of Golgotha that life struck with re- sound of agony that appalled, the earth and the heavens. But in the wake of that life what phosphorescence of smiles on the cheeks of souls pardoned, and lives reformed, and nations re- deemed. The millennium itself is only one roll of that irradiated wave of glad ness and benediction. In the sublimest of all senses it may be said of him, "He maketh path to shine after him."
 But cannot look upon that luminosi- ty that follows ships without realizing how fond the Lord is of life.. That fire of the deep is life, myriads of creatures all a-swim and a-play and a-romp in parks of marine beauty laid out and par tered and roseated and blossomed by Omnipotence. What is the use of those creatures called by the naturalists ''crus- taceans" and "copepods," not more than one out of hundreds of billions of which are ever seen by human eyef God ere ated them for the same reason that he creates flowers in places where no hu- man foot ever makes them tremble, and no human nostril ever inhales their redo lence, and no human eye ever sees thei, charm. In the botanical world they prove that God loves flowers, as in the marine world the phosphori prove that he loves life, and he loves life in play life in brilliancy of gladness, life in ex tolerance.
 And so I am led to believe that he loves our life if we fulfill our mission as fully as the phosphori fulfill theirs. The son of God came "that we might have life and have it more abundantly." But am glad to tell you that our God is not the God sometimes described as a harsh critic at the head of the universe, or ar infinite scold, or God that loves tuner als better than weddings, or 8 God that prefers tears to laughter, an omnipotent Nero, ferocious Mana Sahib, but tho loveliest Being in the universe, loving flowers and life and play, whether oi phosphori in the wake of the Majestic ol of the human race keeping holiday. LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE.
 But mark you that the phosphorescenc, has a glow that the night monopolizes and 1 ask you not only what kind of in fuence you are going to leave in tn, world as you pass through it, but wha light are you going to throw across tn, worlds night of sin and sorrowr Peopl, who are sailing on smooth sea and at noor do not need much sympathy, but wha are you going to do for people in tn, night of misfortune? Will you drop or them shadow, or will you kindle fo them phosphorescence?
 At this moment there are more peopl, crying than laughing, more people ol the round world this moment hungr, chan well fed, more households beref than homes unbroken. What are yol going to do about it2 We'll says yon der soul, "I would like to do somethin, toward illumining the great ocean o human wretchedness, but I cannot d,