Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1895-07-31

Rrace for ordinary business men, men who
are harnessed from morn till night and all
the days Of their life-harnessed in business,
Not grace to lose 800, 900, but grace to los<
e10. Not grace to supervise $50 employees
In factory, but grace to supervise the book.
keeper and two statesmen and the small boy
that sweeps out the store. Grace to invest
not the $SO, 900 OF net profit, but the S25O0
of clear gain. Grace not to endure the loss
of a whole shipload of spices from the In.
dies. but grace to endure the loss Of paper
Of collars from the leakage Of a displaced
shingle on poor roof.
Grace not to endure the tardiness Of the
American Congress in passing a necessary
law, but grace to endure the tardiness OF an
errand boy stopping to play marbles when
he ought to deliver the goodsg such grace
as thousands of business men have to-day,
keeping them tranquil whether goods sell OF
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 1t, and they
may have 1t for the asking Some hero OF
heroine comes to town, and as the procession
passes through the street the business men
come out and stand on tiptoe on their store
steps and look at some one who in arctic
cline or in ocean storm or in day OF battle OF
in hospital agonies did the brave thing. not
realizing that they, the enthusiastic specta-
tors, have gone through trials in business
ife that are just rs great before God. There
hre men who have gone through freezing
hrctics and burning torrids and awful
Iarengos Of experiences without moving
i've miles from their doOrsteps. Now, what
ordinary business men need is to realize that
they have the friendship Of that Christ who
L. xl, lnSa -
Matthew. the custom house clerk. and helped
Lydia of Thyattra to sell the dry goods, and
who opened bakery and fish market in the
wilderdess of Asia Minor to feed the 700
who had come out ON religious picnic. and
who counts the hairs Of your head with as
much particularly as though they were
the plumes OF coronation, and who
took the trouble to stoop down with His
finger writing on the ground, although
the first shuffie 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 nece5-
sary to supply Eiijah's pantry by the brook
Cherith, and who as floral commander leads
forth all the regiments of primroses, fox
gloves, dahodils. 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,
bHl, uOWSvoT luCOuSlueIdDic,
all the affairs Of that woman who keeps
thread and needle store US we'll as all the af.
iairs Of a Rothschild and a Stewart.
Then there are all the ordinary farmers.
We talk about agricultural life, and we i'm
nediately shoot of to talk about Cincin-
natus, the patrician, who went from the piow
to high position, and after he got through
the dictatorship In twenty-one days went
back again to the plow. What encourage
ment Is that to ordinary farmers2 The vast
Majority Of them, none Of them, will be pa
tricians. Perhaps none Of them will be Sem
atOrs. II any Of them have relationships, it
will be over forty or fifty or 100 acres Of the
old homestead. What those men want is
grace to keep their patience while piow-
ing with balky oxen and to keep cheerful
amid the drought that destroys the corn crop
and that enables them to restore the garden
the day after the neighbOr's cattle have
broken in and trampled out the strawberry
bed and gone through the lima bean patch
and eaten up the sweet corn in such large
quantities that they must be kept from the
water lest they swell up and die; grace in
catching weather that enables them without
lmprecation to spread out the hay the third
time. although again and again and again 1t
has been almost ready for the NOV; a grace
to doctor the COW with a hollow born. and
the sheep with the footrot, and the horse
with the distemper, and to compel the I'M
willing acres to yield livelihood for the
family, and schooling for the children, and
little extras to help the older boy in business,
and something for the daughters wedding
outfit, and a little surplus for the time when
the ankles will get stiff with age and the
ireath will be a little short, and the swing
ing of the cradle through the hot harvest
field will bring on the old mans vertigo.
Better close up about Ctncinnatus. l know
100 farmers Just 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, as when
He said, "A sower went forth to SOW" as
when He built His best parable out of the
scene of a farmers boy coming back from
his wanderings, and the old farmhouse shook
that night with rural jubilee, and who COM
pared Himself to a lamb in the pasture field,
and who said the eternal God is a farmer
declaring. my Father is the husbandman." !"
Those stonemasons do not want to hear
about Christopher Wren, the architect, who
built St. Paurs cathedral. 1t would be bet
ter to tell them how to carry the nod Of brick
up the ladder without slipping. and how on
a cold morning with the trowel to smooth of
the mortar and keep cheerful, and how to be
thankful to God for the plain food taken
from the pail by the roadside. Carpenters
standing amid the ADJ, and the bit, and the
plane, and the broadax need to be told that
Christ was q carpenter, with His own hand
welding saw and hammer. Oh, this is a
dred world. and 1t Is an overworked world,
and 1t Is an underfed world, and 1t Is
wrung out world, and men and women need
Ito know that there is rest and recuperation
In God and in that religion which was not
so much intended for extraordinary people
as for ordinary people. because there are
more OF them.
Tie healing profession has had its Aber
.rombies and its Abernethys and its Valen-
line Motts and its Willard Parkers, but the
ordinary physicians do the most of the
II n;,ns, th..,, o.,
stand that while taking diagnosis or prog
losis or writing prescription or compound
ng medcament or holding the delicate pulse
of dying child they may have the presence
and the dictation of the almighty doctor who
took the case of the madman, and after he
nentia clothed him again, body and mind,
and who lifted up the woman who for eight
sen years had been bent almost double with
he rheumatism into graceful stature, and
who turned the scabs of leprosy into rubi-
.und complexion, and who rubbed the numb
hess out Of para lysiS, 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 all the diseases and
all the remedies and all the herbs and all the
catholicons, and is monarch Of pharmacy
and therapeutics, and who has sent out TO-.
300 doctors Of whom the world makes no rec
mercy I 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 benefaction.
Come. now, let us have a religion for or.
iinary people in professions. In occupations,
IN agriculture, In the household, In mer-
|chandise, in everything. I salute across the
centuries Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermas,
|Patrobas, Hernas, Philologus and Julia.
First ofall, II you feel that you are ordi-
nary, thank God that you are not extraordi-
nary. lam tired and sick and 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
ns do, my brother and sister, that the mos.
of the useful work Of the world Is done BY
|unpretentions people who toll right on, by
people who do not get much approval, and
no one seems to say, THAT is we'll done. =
Phenomena are OF but little use. Things
that are exceptional cannot hs de-
pended on. Better trust the smallest plans
that swings on its orbit than ten comet
shooting this way and that, imperiling tn
30 has,