Connecticut western news., 1896-02-27

Oh, we all want sympathy l hear peo- pie talk ss though they were independ E ent of it. None of us could live without When parts of our family are away. how lonely the house seems until they all get home! But, alas, for those who never come home. Sometimes it seems as if it must be impossible. What, will their feet never again come over the threshold? Will they never again sit with us at the table? Will they never again kneel with us at fami ly prayeri Shall we never again look into their sunny faces? Shall we never again on earth take counsel with them for our work? Alas me, who can stand under these griefs? Oh, Christ, thou canst do more for hereft soul than any one elsei It is he who stands beside us to tell of the resurrection. It is he that came to bid peace. It is he that comes to us and breathes into ns the spirit of until we can look up from the wreck and ruin of our brightest ex- pectations and say. Father, not my will. but thine, be done" Oh, ye who are bereft, ye anguish bitten come into this refugel The roll of those who came for relief to Christ Is larger and larger. Unto this Shiloh of omnipotent sympa- thy the gathering of the people shall be. Oh, that Christ would stand by all these empty cradles and all these desolated and all these broken hearts and persuade us it is we'll
 Christ's Sympathy.
 The world cannot offer you any help at such time. Suppose the world comes and offers you money. You would rather live on a crust in a cellar and have your departed loved apes with you than live in ralatial surroundings and they away. Suppose the world offers you it's honors to console you. What is the presidency to Abraham Lincoln when little Willie lies dead in the White House? Perhaps the world comes and says. "Time will cure it all" An, there are griefs that have ragged on for 80 years and are raging yot And yet hun- dreds have been comforted. thousands have been oomforted, millions have been comforted, and Christ had done the work. Oh. what you want is sym pathyi The worlds heart of sympathy beats very irre8nlarly. Plenty of sym pathy when we do not want it, and off, ten when we are in appalling need of 1t nofsympathy. There are multitudes of people dying for sympathy-sympathy in their work. sympathy in their fa- tigues. sympathy in their bereavements. sympathy in their financial losses. sym pathy in their physical ailments. sym pathy in their spiritual anxieties, sym pathy in the time of declining years wide, deep, high. everlasting, almighty sympathy. We must have it, and Christ gives it. That is the cord with which he is going to draw all nations to him.
 At the story of punishment a mans eye flashes, and his teeth set, and his fist clinches, and he prepares to do bat tie even though it be against the heav- ems. Yet what heart so hard but it will succumb to the story of compassion Even a mans sympathy is pleasant and helpful When we have been in some hour of weakness, to have a brawny man stand beside us and promise to see us through, what courage it gives to our he.rt, and what strength it gives to our arm. Still mightier is a woman's sym pathy. Let him tell the story who, when all his fortunes were gone and all the world was against him, came home
 and found in that home wife who could write on the top of the empty flour barrel, "The Lord will provide, or write on the door of the empty ward robe: Consider the lilies of the field. If God so oiothed the grass of the field, will he not clothe us and oursr
 Or let that young man tell the story who has gone the whole round of dissi- patton. The shadow of the penitentiary is upon him, and even his father says: "Be of Never come home again i' The young man finds still bis mothers arm for him, aud how she will stand at the wicket of the prison to whisper consolation or get down on her knees before the governor begging for pardon. hoping on for her wayward boy after all others are hopeless- Or let her tell the story who, under villainous al- lurement and Impatient of parental re straint, has wandered off from home of which she was the idol into the murky and thunderous midnight of abandonment, away from God, and fur ther away until some time she is tossed on the beach of that early home a mere splinter of a wreck. Who will pity her nowr Who will gather these dishonored locks into her lap? Who will wash of the blood from the gashed forehead2 Who will tell her of that Christ who came to save the lost? Who will put that weary head upon the clean white pillow and watch by day and watch by night until the hoarse voice of the suf- ferer becomes the whisper, and the whisper becomes only faint motion of the lips, and the faint motion of tho lips is exchanged for a silent look, and the cut feet are still, and the weary eyes are still, and the frenzied heart is still, and all is still? Who will have compassion on her when no others have compassion9 Mother! Motherl
 A Glorious Saviour.
 Oh, there is something beautiful in sympathy-in manly sympathy, wifely sympathy, motherly sympathy, yea. and neighborly sympathyl Why was 1t that city was aroused with excitement
  one of the streets? Why were whole col
 umns of the newspapers filled with the story of a little child? It was because we are all one in sympathy, and every parent said: "How if it had been my Lizzie? How if 1t had been my Mary? !?
 How if it had been my Maud? How if
 it had been my child? How if there had
 been one unoccupied pillow in our trun- dle he'd tonight? How if my little one --bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh
 were tonight carried captive into some
 den of vagahonds, never to come back to
 me? How if it had been my sorrow
 looking out of the window watching
 and waiting-that sorrow worse than
 death?" Then when they found her,
 why did we declare the news all through
 the households, and everybody that
 knew how to pray said. "Thank 9odf"
 Because we are all one, bound by one
 great golden chain of sympathy. Oh.
 yes, but I have to tell you that if you
 l.