The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1894-10-12


will triumph if you seek it.
Again, our subject is an illustration
of what religion may be under the
pressure of poverty. The captivity and
crushed condition of this orphan girl,
and of the kind man who adopted her,
suggest a condition of poverty. Yet,
from the very first acquaintance we
had with Hadassah we find her the
same happy and contented Christian.
1t was only by compulsion she
was afterward taken into sphere of
honor and affiuence. In the humble
home of Mordecai, her adopted father,
she was light that illumined every
privation. In some period in almost
every mans life there comes season
of straitened circumstances when the
severest calculation and most scraping
economy are necessary in order to SUBJ
sistence and respectability. AT the
of business, at the en-
trance upon a profession, when friends
are few and the world is afraid of you
because there is a possibility of failure,
many of the noblest hearts have strug-
gled against poverty and are now strug-
Cling. To such / bear a message of
good cheer. You say it is hard thing
for you to be Chistian. This constant
anxiety this unresting calculations wear
out the buoyancy of your spirit, and
although you have told perhaps no
one about it. cannot tell that this is
the very trouble which keeps You from
being what you ought to be? You
have no time to think about laying up
treasures in Heaven when it is a mat
ter of great doubt whether you will be
enabled to pay your next quarters
rent. You cannot think of striving
after a robe of righteousness until you
can get means enough to buy an over
coat to keep out the cold. You want
the Bread of Life, but you think you
must get along without that until you
can buy another barrel of flour for
your wife and children. Sometimes
you sit down discouraged and almost
wish you were dead. Christians in
satin slippers, with their feet on dam
ask ottoman, may scout at such
a class of temptations, but those
who themselves have been in the
struggle and grip of hard misfor-
tune can appreciate the power of
these evils to dissuade the soul
away from religious duties. We adj
NIT the strength of the temptation,
but then we point to Hadassah, her
poverty equaled by her piety. Courage
down there in the battle. Hurl away
your disappointment! Men of half
your heart have, through Christ, been
more than conquerors. In the name of
God. come out of that The religion of
Christ is Just what you want out there
among the empty flour barrels and
beside the cold hearths. You have
never told any one of what a hard time
you have had. but God knows it as well
as you know it. Your easy times will
come after while. Do not let your
spirits break down mid-life. What if
your coat is thin? Run fast enough to
keep warm. What if you have no lux
uries an your table? High expecta-
tions will make your blood Jingle bet
ter than the best Madeira. If you can
not afford to smoke. you can afford to
whistle. But merely animal spirits
are not sufficient; the power of the
gospel-that is what you want to
wrench despair out of the soul and put
you forward into the front of the hosts,
encased in impenetrable armor. 1t
does not require extravagant ward
robe and palatial residence, and dash
ing equipage to make man rich. The
heart right the estate is right. 1t is
not often that men of good habits come
to positive beggary, but among those
who live in comfortable houses all
about you, among honest mechanics,
and professional men who never say
word about it, there are exhibitions of
heroism and endurance such as you
may never have imagined. These men
who ask no aid; who demand no SYM
pathy; who with strong arm and skill
full brain push their own way through
are Hannibals scaling the Alps; are
Hercules staying the lion; are Moses in
Gods name driving back the seas.
Hadassah with her needle has done
drawer things shan Caesar with a
sword.
Again, our subject illustrates what
religion may be when in strange
land. or far from home. Hadassah was
Il stranger in Shushan. Perhaps
brought up in the quiet or rural
scenes, she was now surrounded by the
dazzle of city. Heads as strong as
hers had been turned by transit from
country to city. More than that, she
was in strange land. Yet in that
loneliness she kept the Christians in
tegrity, and was as consistent among
the allurements of Shushan as among
the kindred of her fathers house.
Perhaps | address some who are now
far away from the home of their faith
ers. You came across the seas. The
sepulchers of your dead are far away.
Whatever may be the comfort and
adornment of your present home, you
cannot forget the place of your birth,
though it may have been lowly and
unhonored. Though you may have
hundreds of friends around you, you
often feel that you are strangers
in strange land. God saw the bitter
partings when your families were scat
tered. He watched you in the ships
cabin floundering the stormy seas. He
knew the bewilderment of your disem-
barhation on strange shore. and your
wanderings up and down this land have
been under an eye that never sleeps,
and felt by heart that always pities.
Stranger far from home, you have a
companion in the beautiful Hadassah,
as good in Shushan as in her native
Jerusalem. Far away the kirk! Far
away the homestead! Far away the
town! Have you formed habits which
would not have seemed right in the
places and times of which we speak?
Have you built an altar in your present
abode? Is the religion OF olden time
once planted in your heart come up in