Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1895-10-10
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.
A Scholarly Expedition Of the Lesson
Thoughts Worthy of Calm Reflec-
tion-Half an Hours Study Of tho
scriptures-Time Well Spent.


Iolden Ioxt--'lnougn most Bn0uld
encamp against me, my heart shall not
fear" -Ps. 81: B..
The lesson this week is found in Judges
z: 1923 and has for its subject 'The
Triumph OF Gideon"
Lamps, pitchers and trumpets. The
right use of means Trumpets, but they
must be blown; lamps, bit they must be
fiared forth. Put the trumpet to the
mouth and sound the note, I'VE are wit
nesses." Break the pitchers and let the
radiance CLEAN forth. LET your light
shine" Use the instruments that God
has given, to his glory and to the over
throw of the enemies of the Lord. Con-
secration. This is the thought of the les
son in nutshell "Yeare not your own,
for We are brought with price; there
fore glorify God in your body, and in
your spirit, which are Gods" Take the
lesson into the personal relations of life
and apply it there.
Gideon means he that cuts down.
Wood-chopper, we may say. Like unto
that rail-splitter, Abraham Lincoln, who
brought us through the stress of the six
ties. God has his men for the time, his
judges and saviors still. What Gideon
had passed through well prepared him for
this mightiest test On one side, badgered
and driven of the Arab hordes, until com
PEELED to thresh his wheat in the hiding of
the wine press to keep>t from their lustful
hands. On the other hand MET and in
structed of God in vision of his ordain-
ment for great and gracious service in
Israel's behalf, and still later assured by
the tests by the well of Harod and by the
water side that God was about to inter-
vene with his sovereign arm.
One other assurance or reinsurance God
sends to Gideon as kind of concession
to his human way of thinking. He sends
him dream, not his own, but one the
relations and Interpretation of which he
overhears while spying the edge of the
enemies camp. From 1t he gathers cour-
age and hope of success, not simply or
perhaps at all as being revelation from
on high, but as, in its timid interpreta-
ton, disclosing the real terror of the God
Of Israel that was in the heart of the ene-
mics of the Lord.
He divided the three hundred men
into three companies;" ]. e., hundred in
each. Here was where the test came for
Gideon. 1t was in lining up his men
against such an army. What criticism,
what silent looks of wonderment he must
have faced at that moments 300 against
10000. There is only one way to ac-
count for it. Gideon believed that he was
Gods man for the conflict, and his three
hundred must have come to agree with
him. "As do, so shall We do" The wise
general now. He is setting the right pat
tern for battle and teaching the method of
II 10 nnf spr tho mo m,
of faith and prayer as the man of prowess
and action or it is rather faith at work.
Trumpets, pitchers, lamps-these were
the implements of warfare used at the
outset. They were well calculated under
the powerful hand of the Lord, acting
through Gideon, to produce the effect de-
termined. Three hundred trumpets sound
ing simultaneously from opposite direc-
tons, torches hid for moment in pots,
such as watchmen sometimes use in the
east, but taken out and flung about the
head, blazing forth like the fiambeau of
the torch-lghters, the voice ana vision Of
the mountain side to the superstitious and
apprehensive nomads, out of their or
binary surroundings, must have seemed
terribly uncanny and frightful. Then
came the mighty panic, the riot of flight,
self-destruction and virtual humiliation.
There is no more moving scene in all his
tory and none more significant or sugges-
tive of wholesome lessons.
"a Illustrations.
A united nation has recently been re-
viewing the battle field of Chickamauga
and honoring the memory of the brave
men who fell there:
"On flames eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread;
While glory guards with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead"
The prevailing tone of addresses de-
livered was one of loyalty to the flag that
floats above MS and the look was not back
ward, but forward. 1t was over a similar
battlefield that Lincoln uttered the me-
morable words:
''The world will little note - long re-
member what we say here, but it can
never forget what they did -here. 1t is
rather for us to be here dedicated to the
task before us-that from these honored
dead we take increased devotion to that
cause for which they gave the last full
measure of devotion-that we here highly
resolve that these dead shall not have died
in vain"
In doing battle against evil count on
conscience. Gideon's tactics would have
been madness, were it not for the reads
spirit of fear in the hearts of the INDIAN
ties. We are told that Hannibal, one
time, cut off from the pass and in danger
of humiliation at the hands of Fabius,
saved himself by ruse that would al
most seem to have been suggested by
GideOn's strategem. He fastened lighted
torches to the horns of all the oxen, two
thousand in number, and drove them to-
ward the enemy. AS the light burned to
the quick the frantic beasts stampeded,
and the Romans, thinking they were sur
rounded by an unknown force, fed and
left the pass. Take the hearts of men in
to the account, conscience and fear speak
for the truth and make arms, otherwise
Intellectual, mighty to the pulling down Of
strongholds. Count on God.
Lamp, pitchers, trumpets, fit symbols
for the children of light. Let us wear the
right regalia. Some one was asked her
impression regarding a young man to
whom she had been Introduces: do not
ask me-" she replied, IL can remember
nOtmng AT all OUT II nOrrlDle great, req
coral ball in his cravat, which rolled
against all my ideas, and knocked them
down like nine pins"
Lamps and pitchers, shrouded light, but
only that the pitchers might presently be
broken, and the light shine out all the
more brilliantly and effectively. o, the
lights kept covered all about us, the
bushel never lifted, the pitchers never
broken! A Catholic towns. woman died
the other day, and left the bulk of her