The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-09-28

! y
| stand politics better than the clergy, be-
cause they Ghe laymen), study politics
more than the clergy and have better
opportunity of being intelligent on those
subjects. But good morals, honesty, 10y
atty Christian patriotism and the Ten
COMMUNICATIVE we must preach.
God says distinctly in the Bible, THE sill
yer and the gold are mine" and he will
settle the controversy between those two
metals. If ever this country needed the
divine rescue it needs it now Never
within my memory have so many people
literally starved to death as in
the past few months. Have you
noticed in the newspapers how many
men and women here and there have been
found dead, the post-mortem examination
stating that the cause of death was hun
ger? There is not a day that we do not
hear the crash of some great commercial
establishment, and as a consequence many
people are thrown out Of employment
Among what we considered comfortable
homes have come privation and close cal
culation and an economy that kills. NIL
lions of people who say nothing about it
are at this moment at their wits end.
There are millions of people who do not
want charity, but want work. The cry
has gone up to the ears of the Lord of
Sabaoth," and the prayer will be heard
and relief will come. If we have nothing
better to depend on than American poll
tics, relief will never come. Whoever is
elected to the presidency, the wheels of
government turn so slowly, and a caucus
in yonder white building on the mill may
tie the hands of any President. Now,
though we who live in the District of
Columbia cannot vote, we can pray, and
my prayer day and night shall be: 20,
God, hear the cry of the souls from under
the altar! Thou who hast brought the
wheat and corn of this season to such
. 70
and beast. Thou who hast not where to
lay thy head, pity the shelterless. Thou
who hast brought to perfection the cotton
of the south and the fax of the north,
clothe the naked Thou who hast filled
the mine with coal, give fuel to the shiver-
ing Bring bread to the body, intelligence
to the mind and salvation to the soul Of
all the people God save the nation!
But we must admit it is a hard gate
to push back Millions of thin hands have
pushed at 1t without making II swing on
its hard hinges. 1t is a gate made out
of empty -four barrels, and cold ire
CRATES, and worn out apparel, and cheer
less homes, and unmedfcated sickness.
and ghastliness, and horror 1t is a gate
of struggle. A gate of penury. A gate
of want. A gate of disappointment a
red gate, or what Isaiah would have call
ed a gate of carbuncles.
Now, as 1 have already suggested, as
will be happier if we consent to have our
life a struggle. l do not know any one TO
whom it is not a struggle. Louis the Four
teenth thought he had everything fixed
just right and fixed TO stay, and so he had
the great clock at Bordeaux made. The
hours of that clock were struck by fig
ures in bronze representing the kings of
Europe, and at a certain time of day Will
lam the Third of England and other kings
were made to come out and bow to Louis
the Fourteenth. But the clock got out Of
order one day and just the opposite or
what was expected occurred, as the clock
struck a certain hour Louis the Four
tenth was thrown to the feet of William
the Third. And so the clock of destiny
brings many surprises and those go
down that you expected to stand am
at the foot of disaster most regal con-
ditions tumble. In all styles of life lnere
come disappointment and struggle God
has for some good reason arranged it so. If
1t is not poverty, 1t is sickness. If it Is not
sickness, it is persecution. If it is not
persecution, 1t is contest with some evil
appetite. If it is not some evil appe-
tite, it is bereavement. If it is not one
thing. it is another. DO not get soured
and cross and think your case is peculiar
You are just like the rest of us. You will
have to take the bitter draught whether
it be handed to you in golden chalice or
pewter mug. A man who has a thou
sand dollars year income sleeps sounder
and has better appetite than the man
who has five millions. If our life were not
struggle we would never consent to get
out of this world and we would want to
stay here, and so block up the way of
the advancing generations. BY the time
that a man gets to be 20 years of age, and
! sometimes by the time he gets to be so
| years of age, he says II have had enough
! of this, and when the Lord wills 1t 1 am
| ready to emigrate to country where
| there are no taxes and the silver of the
| trumpet put to ones lips has no quarrel
! with the gold of the pavement under his
| feet" We have in this world more op-
| portunity to cultivate patience than to
! cultivate any other grace. Let that grace
| be strengthened In the royal gymnasium
! of obstacle and opposition, and by the
! help of God, having overcome our own
! hindrances and worrments, let us go forth
| to help others whose struggle is greater
! than our own.
| A friend told me the other day of a shoe
! maker in a Russian city whose bench was
! in the basement of q building, and so far
| underground that he could see only the
! feet of those who went by on the side
walk. Seated on his bench he often look
! ed up, and there went the swift and skip
ping feet of children, and then the slow
| and uniform step of the aged and then
! AttN with SllOtS oiu anu worn OUT, ana tneD
crippled feet, and he resolved he would
| do a kindness to each one who needed it.
So when the foot with the old and worn
out shoe was passing, he would hail IL
| and make for 1t a comfortable covering,
for he had the hammer and the pegs. and
| the shoe-lasts, and the lapstone, and the
! leather to do It. And when he saw the
| invalid foot pass he would hail it and go
out and offer medicine and crutch and
helpfulness. And when he saw the aged
foot pass he hailed it and told the old
man of heaven, where he would be youne
again. When he saw the foot of childhood
pass on the sidewalk he would so out with
good advice and n laugh that seemed like
an echo of the child's laugh Well, time
| went on and as the shoemaker's wants
| were very few, he worked but little for
himself and most Of the time for others
and in the long evenings, when he could
not SO wen see the feet passing on the
| sidewalk, he would make shoes of all sizes
and stand them on a shelf ready for
feet that would pass in the daytime OF
| course, as the years went on, under this
| process the shoemaker became more and
| more Christian, until one day he said to
himself; Il wish among all those feet
| passing up there on the sidewalk 1 could
] the feet of the dear Christ ,,oestpc-