The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-10-19

tale or the man who missed the tfaln which connected with the steamer that was lost with all on board of her, re- lates the missing of the train as an act of special Providence; relates at the same time a great many more tales Of the failure of Proidence, for what ofall the people who didn't miss the train? But David knew all these lapses of Providence as we'll as we do, and yet he proclaims the very things to which those pertain as the grounds for praise. Isn't there an enigma? Not if praise be given her true char acter. In the first place. praise is not a historian she is prophet. Praise is not the cash you fling down on the counter for goods you have already tucked under your arm. You have not the goods, you have very likely never seen the goods, possibly you have seen samples of them which made you long for them, but the samples were not the goods; they were not even evidence that they were the goods you needed. Praise is the glo- rious cash of heart offering which you fling down on the counter of life though that counter be a coffin, in con- fidence in the grand old merchant your lifelong friend that he will get you what you need Many are the atflic- tions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.' Now, incidentally, tomorrow, very likely, some time certainly. Praise is the prophet of the some time.
 Tn that mighty avalanche of the as- sumption of individual rights of con- science and judgment which has since just before the Reformation taken the place of the old submission and resiG- nation the individual soul has never to any extent assumed one right which must belong to somebody; if the soul has not master but itself, then to itself the right of prophecy. A gloom settles down upon us in the midst of our tenement house problems and our Armenian massacres because the hal lelujahs of the prophet are silent That which is sings praises only because it is the mother of that which is to be. We have scientists in place of prophets, electricians instead of palmists. The scientist and electrician are Gods workers, but not in the prophets place. And who is the prophet then? Why he who under this reign of republicanism and private judgment is king and priest, the soul itself My fellow men you and I have no call, not many of us at least, to prattle about milleniums and to figure out the times of Daniel, but to praise God for the coming de- liverence of body, to shout the songs of the souls final victory over temp tation to rejoice in the coming of Him. the Lord and Master of us all we do have a call That all this Is mainly prophetic and slowly achieved should not make the rejoicings of this hour any fainter or the present demand for tinlbrel and harp the less.
 That. sympathy which moves the world entails an ever increasing amount of vicarious suffering. There are fewer men every day than can be happy, i. e., animally happy, no matter what their own circumstances. While others suffer and do wrong it is the Christians burden of souls, the social ist's struggles for humanity, the real statesman's reviled toll for his country from which none who consciously or unconsciously walk behind the star-lit cross of Him who saved others and could not save Himself, can escape. Without those who mourn, humanity must cease to improve. The animals unconsidering delight in life is impos- sible to them. Yet Jesus Himself de- livered an inscription for the office and home walls of all such, which does not neutralize their mourning, but makes it the very foundation of joy. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted' So said Jesus, so says his tory and science with their unmistaka- ble evidence that others have not toiled and sorrowed in vain. Shall we be the first, is the arm of God shortening, is His heart despairing? As in every great sunset, the sun rests on clouds and the clouds on the earth so rests the flooding light of this prophetic joy on to-day's dim and strenuous exertion. An! no man sees his own sunset, his soul must be the prophet of it. It is to the observer on the hill that the | wayfarer on the plain moves on in g. golden haze. Let thy prophetic soul re- joice in what it cannot see. Let 1t be the prophet on the hill to thy life on the plain.
 "The prophetic vision of life is the only foundation of happiness, which, it seems to me, is not unstable as air
 the sacred duty of being happy is the sacred duty of being a prophet as thy Master ever was and as He hade thee be when He bade thee follow in His footsteps. If you must drink His cup of sorrow, by no means neglect the fountains of His joy. Even He could not have endured the one without the other
 But there are one or two material barriers to successful happiness worth considering. We should never seek to rest it on a comparison with others; that is as ambiguous evidence as the current tales of special providences. As compared with the denizen of the caves of Mulberry Bend you are truly blessed as compared with the strong, well, richly endowed life of another your blessings may seem very small, on that basis doubtless are What would you think of the neighbor who sat down beside you some evening and as you waxed confidential said to you, uneasily, well, one thing is certain my wife loves me a great deal more than some wives love their husbands; my boy hasn't treated me so badly as some bows treat their fathers he must be a