The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1895-03-06

the crossing of his eyes-that subject.
ed him to the caricature of all the
small wits of the day; vermin and
dead animals thrown at him while he
preached on the commons-that made
three troubles. Nevertheless his ser.
mons were so bouyant that a little
child dying soon after hearing him
preach said in the intervals of pain,
Let me go toMr. Whitefield's Godr
Oh, I am so glad that Benaiah of my
text was not the only one who tri,
umphsd over lion in a piton snowy
day.
Notice in my text a victory over bad
weather. 1t was snowy day, when
ones vitality is at low ebb, and the
spirits are naturally depressed, and one
does not feel like undertaking a great
enterprise, when Benaiah rubs hls
hands together to warm them by ex-
ira friction. or thrashes his arms
around him to revive circulation OF
the blood, and then goes at the hon,
which was all the more fierce and raw
enous because of the sharp weather.
Inspiration here admits atmospheric
hindrance. The snowy day at Valley
Forge well nigh put an end to the
struggle for American independence.
The Snowy day demolished Napoleon's
army on the way from Moscow.
Thank God there are Christians,
who, though their whole life through
sickness has been snowy day, have
killed every lion of despondency that
dared to put its cruel paw against
their suffering pillow. It was a snowy
day when the pilgrim fathers set foot,
not on bank of flowers, but on the
cold New England rock, and from a
ship that might have been more ap-
propriately called after December
hurricane than after ''Mayfower, :"
they took possession of this great con-
tinent. And amid more chilly world
ly circumstances many good man or
a good woman has taken possession
of a whole continent of spiritual salts
faction, valleys Of peace, and rivers Of
gladness and mountains of Joy.
Christ landed in our world not in the
month of May, but in the stormy
month of December, to show US that
we might have Christ in winter wealth
er and On snowy day.
Notice everything down in the pit
that snowy day depended upon Bena-
iah's weapon. There was as much
strength in one muscle of that lion as
in all the muscles of both arms of Be
naiah. It is the strongest of beasts
and has been known to carry ofan OK.
Its tongue is so rough that it acts as a
rasp tearing off the flesh it icks. The
two great CANNES at each side of the
mouth make escape impossible for
anything it has once seized, yet Bena-
iah puts his heel on the neck of the
ssking of beasts" Was it a daggers
Was it a javelin? Was it knife2 I
cannot tell, but everything depended
on it. But for that Benaiah's body
under one crunch Of the monster
would have been limp and tumbled in
the snow, and when you and I 60 into
the fight with temptation, if we have
not the right kind of weapon, instead
of Staying the lion the lion will slay
us. The sword of the Spirit! Nothing
in earth or hell can stand before that.
Victory with that, or no victory atan.
By that 7 mean prayer to God, conf
dence in his rescuing power, saving
grace, almighty deliverance. | do not
care what you call it. call it ''sword
of the Spirit, " and if the lions Of all
the jungles of perdition should at once
spring upon your soul by that weapon
of heavenly metal you can thrust them
back and cut them down and stab
them through. and leave them power
less at your feet. Your good resolu-
tons welded against the powers which
assault you is a toy pistol against an
armstrong gun, is a penknife held out
against the brandished sabres Of a
Heintzelman's cavalry charge. Go
into the fight against sin on your own
strength, and the result viii be the
hot breath of the lion in your blanch-
ed face, and his front paws one on each
lung. Alas, for the man not fully
armed down in the pit on snowy day
and before him a lion!
A word to all who are in a snowy
day. Oh, fathers and mothers who
have lost children, that is the weather
that cuts through body and soul. But
drive back the lion of bereavement
with the thought which David Rae of
Edinburgh got from the Scoth grave
digger, who was always planting white
clover and the sweetest flowers on the
children's graves in the cemetery and
when asked why he did SO replied:
Surely, sir, I Gamma make over hne
the bed GOVERN o. a little innocent
sleeper that's waitin there till it's
Gods time to waken it and cover it
with the white robe and watt it away
to glory. When sic grandeur is waitin
it yonder, it's fit it should be decked
out here. ! think the Saviour that
counts its dust sac precious will like to
see the white clover sheet spread over
it. Do ye moo think so, too, sir2"
Cheer up all disconsolates. The best
work for God and humanity has been
done on the snowy day. At gloomy
Marine Terrace, island of Jersey, the
exile Victor Hugo wrought the might
est achievement of his pen. Ezekiel,
banished and bereft andan invalid at
Cornhill,. on the banks the Cnebar.
had his momentous vision of the cheru-
bim and wheels within wheels. By
the dim light of dungeon window at
Bedford, John Bunyan sketches the
sDelectable Mountains" Milton writes
the grestest poem of all time without
eyes. Michael Angelo carved statue
out of snow, and all Florence gazed in
raptures at its exquisiteness, and many
of Gods servants have out of the cold
cut their immortality. Prosecutions
were the dark background that made
more impressive the courage and con-
secration of Savonaroia, who, when
threatened with denial of burial, said,
'sThrow me into the Arno if you
choose; the resurrection day will find
me, and that's enough" Benaiah, on
a cold, damp, cutting, snowy day,
gained leonine triumph. Hardship and
trouble have again and again exalted