Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1895-08-02
of collars from the leakage OF displaced

I
law, but grace to endure tho hardness OF an
errand boy stepping to play marbles when
he ought to deliver the goods; such grace
as thousands OF business men have to-day,
keeping them tranquil whether goods sell or
do not sell, whether customers pay or do not
pay whether the tariff is up or tariff is down.
whether the crops are luxuriant or a dead
failure calm in all circumstances and amid
all vissicitudes-that is the kind OF grace We
want Millions of men want it, and they
may have it for the asking. Some hero OF
heroine comes to town. and the procession
passes through the street the business men
come out and stand on tiptOe on their store
| steps and look at some ono who in arctic
| cline or in ocean storm or in day Of battle or
| in hospital agonies did the brave thing, not
realizing that they, the enthusiastic specta-
tors, have gone through trials in business
| life that are lust rs great before Col. Theirs
are men who have gone through freezing
arctics and turning torrids aud awful
Marengos of experiences without moving
| five miles from their doorsteps Now, what
| ordinary business men need is to raalize that
they have the friendship of that Christ who
| looked after the religious interests OF
| Matthew, the custom house clerk and helpe1
| Lydia of Thyatira to sell the dry goods, and
| who opened bakery and fish market in tho
| wilderdess Of Asia Minor to feed the 70
| WHO Ddu COIDb Oul Ou a SlOuS pitlNs hu 1
| who counts the hairs OF your head with ~
much particularly as though they were
| the plumes of coronation, an who
| took the trouble to -stoop down with His
| finger writing on the ground, although
the first shuttle OF feet obliterated the divine
caligraphy, and who knows just how many
| locusts there were in the Egyptian plague
and knew just how many ravens were neces-
sary to supply E iiahs pantry by the broo,x
| Cherith and who as floral commander leads
forth all the regiments OF prmroses, fox
| gloves, daffodis. hyacinths and lilies which
| pitch their tents of beauty and kindle their
| camp fires of color all around the hemi-
| sphere; that that Christ and that God know
| the most minute affairs of your business life,
! and, however nconsiderab.e, understanding
| p the affairs of that woman who keeps
| thread and need e store us vel as a the a.
fairs of Il Rothschild and a Stewart.
Then there are all the ordinary farmers.
! We talk about agricultural life, AMI We i'm
| meiiately shoot off to talk about Cincin-
natus, the patriciau, who went from the p ow
to high position, and after he got through
the dictatorship i'll twenty-one days went
back again to the pow. What encourage
ment is that to ordinary farmers? The vast
majority of them, none of them, viii be pa
| tricians. Perhaps nons OF them will be SEN
| ators. If any ofthem hay3 relationships, it
| will be over forty or Atty or 100 acres Of tho
| old homestead. What those men want Is
grace to keep their patience while plow'
ing with balky oxen and TO keep cheerful
amid the drought that destroys the corn crop
IN | that enables them to restore tho garden
the day after the neighbor's cattle hav5
broken in and tramped out th9 strawberry
bed and gone through the lima beau patch
and eaten up The sweet corn in such largo
quantities that they must be kept from thu
water lest they swell up and de- grace i'll
catching weather that enables the n without
imprecation to spread O1t the hay the thir
time, althOu IN again an again and again it
has been almost ready for the NOW; grac3
to doctor the COW with a hollow born. and
the sheep with the footrot, AMI the horse
with the distemper, and to compel the un-
willing acres to yield livelihood for the
family, and schooling for the children, an
little extras to help the older boy in business,
and something for the daughters welding
outfit, and little surplus fo- the tim9 whea
the ankles will get stiff with age and the
breath will be a little Short, AM the swing
Ing OF the cradle through the hot harvest
field will bring on the old mans vertigo.
Better close UP about Cincinnatus. l know
800 farmers Just as noble as he was.
What they want is to know that they have
the friendship of that Christ who often drew
His SMILES from the farmers life, rs when
He said, IA sower went forth to SOW, rs
when He built His best parable out of the
scene Of farmers boy coming back from
his wanderings and the old farmhOuseshook
that night with rural jubilee, and who COM
pared Himself to lamb in the pasture field,
an who said the eternal God is farme-,
declaring, "My Father Is the husbandman."
Those stOnemasons d. not want to hear
about Christopher Wren, the architect, who
built st. Pauls cathedral, 1t would be bet
ter to tell them how to carry the hod OF brick
up the ladder without slipping. and how on
cold morning with the trowel to smooth OIL
the mortar and keep cheerful, aud how to b9
thankful to God for the plain fool taken
from the pail by the roadside. Carpenters
standing amid the adj, aud the bit, aud ths
plane, aud the broadax nee1 to be told that
Christ was a carpenter, with His own hanl
welding saw and hammer. Oh, this is u
tired world, and it is an overworked world,
and it is an underfed world and it IS
Wrung out world. and men and women nee
10 know that there is rest and recuperation
in God and in that religion which was not
so much intended for extraordinary people
rs for ordinary people. because there arc
more of them.
Tie healing profession has hal its Aber-
crombies and its Abernethys and its Valen-
tine Motifs and its Willard Parkers, but the
ordinary physicians do the most of the
worlds medcning, and they need to under
stand that while taking diagnosis or prog
nosis or writing prescription or compound
ing medicament or holding the delicate pulse
of dying child they may have the presence
and the dctaticn Of the almighty doctor who
took the case of the mailman, and after he
had torn off his garments in foamng de-
mentia clothed him again, body and mind
and who lifted up the woman who for eight
cen years had been bent almost dOub.e with
the rheumatism into graceful stature, and
who turned the scabs OF leprosy into rubi-
cund complexion. and who rubbed the numb
ness out of para ysis, and who swung wide
open the closed windows Of hereditary or
accidental blindness until the morning light
came streaming through the feshly case
ments, and who knows alfthe diseases and
all the remedies aud all the herbs and a the
cathoicons, and is monarch Of pharmacy
and therapeutics, aud who has sent out 49,
900 doctors of whom the world makes no rec
ord, but to prove that they are angels OF
mercy invoke the thousands Of men whose
ailments have been assuaged and the thou
sands of women to whom in crises OF pain
they have been next to God in benelactlor.
Come. now. let us have Il religion for or
binary people in professions in occupations,
in agriculture, in the household, in mer-
chandise, in everything. I salute across the
centuries Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermas,
Patrobas. Hernes, Phiiolo gus and Julia.
First ofalI, if you feel that YOU are ordi-
nary, thank God that you are not extraordi-
nary. lam tired and sick AMI bored almost
to death with extraordinary people. They
take all their time to tell us how very extra.
ordinary they really are. You know as Well
as do, my brother and sister, that the moss
of the useful work of the world is done by
toll rfo on