The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1896-02-28

| to Christ is larger and larger. Unto
this Shiloh of omuipotent sympathy
the gathering of the people shall be.
/ Oh, that Christ would stand by all
these empty cradles, and all these des-
olated homesteads and all these broken
hearts. and persuade us it is well.
/ The world cannot offer You any help
at such a time. Suppose the world
comes and offers you money. You
would rather live on a crust in a cellar
and have your departed loved ones
with you, than live in palatial sur
roundings aud they away. Suppose
the world offers you its hOnors to con-
sole you. What is the presidency to
Abraham Lincoln when little Willie
lies dead in the white house? Per-
/ haps the world comes and saws:
Time will cure it all" All, there
are griefs that have ragged on
for 80 years and are raging vet.
And yet hundreds have been
comforted, thousands have been
comforted, millions have been COM
forted, and Christ had done the work
Oh, what you want is sympathy. The
worlds heart of sympathy beats very
irregularly. Plenty ofsympathy when
we do not want it, and often when we
are in appalling need of it, no sympa-
thy. There are multitudes of people
dying for sympathy-sympathy in
their work. sympathy in their fatigues,
sympathy in their bereavement, sym
pathy in their financial losses, sympa-
thy in their physical ailments, in their
spiritual anxieties, sympathy 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 go
ing to draw all nations to Him.
At the story of punishment a mans
eve flashes and his teeth set and his fist
clinches, and he prepares to do battle.
even though it be against the heavens:
yet what heart so hard but it will sue
cumb to the story of compassionI Even
a mans sympathy is pleasant and help
ful. When we have been in some hour
of weakness, to have d brawny man
stand beside US and promise to see us
through, what courage it gives to our
heart and what strength it gives to our
arm. Still mightier is a woman's sym
pathy. Let him tell the story who,
when all the world was against him,
came home and found in that home a
wife who could write on the top of
the empty flour barrel: THE Lord
will provide;;" or write on the door of
the empty wardrobe: Consider the
lilies of the field: if God so clothed
the grass of the field, will He
not clothe US and ours?" Or
let that young man tell the story who
has gone the whole round of dissipa-
ton. The shadow of the penitentiary
il upon him, and even his father SAYS:
BE off! never come home again. The
young man finds still his mothers arm
outstretched for him, and how she
will stand at the wicket of the prison
to whisper consolation, or get down
on her knees before the governor, beg
ging for pardon, hoping on for her
wsyward boy after all others are
hopeless. Or let her tell the story
who, under villainous allurement and
impatient OF parental restraint, has
wandered off from home of which
she was the idol into the murky and
thunderons midnight of abandon
ment, away from God. and fur
Their away, until some time she is
tossed on the beach of that early home
a mere splinter of wreck. Who will
pity her now? Who will gather these
dishonest locks into her lap? Who
will wash off the blood from the gashed
forehead? 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 sufferer becomes the whis-
per, aud the whisper becomes only a
faint motion of the lips. and the faint
motion of the lips is exchanged for
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 compassion?
Mother! MotherI
OIL there is something beautiful in
sympathy-in manly sympathy, wifeIy
sympathy, mOtherly sympathy, yea in
neighborly sympathy. Why was it
that city was aroused when a little
child was kidnapped from one of the
streets? Why were whole columns of
the newspapers filed with the story of
the little child? 1t was because we are
all one in sympathy. and every parent
said: How if it had been my Lizzie?
how if it had been my Mary? how if /
it had been nv Maud? how if it had |.
been nv child? how If there had been |
one unOCcupied pillow in our trundle- !
bed tonight? how if my little one
bone of my bone and flesh of nv /
fesh-were tonight carried captive /
into some den of vagabonds, /
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 I
they found her why did we declare the /
news all through the households, and /
everybody that knew how to pray said, 4
Thank GodI' Because we are all one. /
bound by one great golden chain of .
sympathy. Oh! yes, but have to tell 4