The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1897-05-22

look up, and yon will see two blacl
spots on the sky, and you will hear thu
Tapping of wings, and instead of Ed
gar A. Poe's insane raven ahghting or
the chamber door, ''only this and moth
ing more" you will find Elijah's two
! ravens, or two ravens of the Lord, the
one bringing bread and the Other
bringing meat-plumed butcher and
baker.
God Is intimate in resource. When
the city of Rochelle was besieged, an6
the inhabitants were dying of the
famine, the tides washed up on the
beach as never before. and as never
since, enough shell-fish to feed the
whole city. God is good. There is
no mistake about that. History tells US
that in 1855 in England there was a
great drought. The lcrops failed; but
in Essex. on the rocks, in place where
they had neither sown nor cultured, a
great crop of;peas grew until they filed
IA hundred measures; and there were
poisoning vines enough, promising as
much more.
But why go so far? / can give you a
family incident. Some generations
back there was great drought in
Connecticut, New England. The water
disappeared from the hills, and the
farmers living on the hills drove their
cattle down toward the valleys, and
had them supplied at the wells and
fountains of the neighbors. But these
after awhile began to fail, and the
NO ierhh 20 I'D ~
whom l shall speak: ''You must not
send your flocks and herds down here
any more; our wells are giving out"
Mr.. Birdseye, the old Christian man.
gathered his family ut the altar, and
with his family he gathered the slaves
of the household-for bondage was
then in vogue in Connecticut-ando on
their knees before God they cried for
water, and the family story is that
there was weeping and great sobbing
at that altar that the family might
not perish for lack of water, and that
the herds and focks might not perish.
The family rose from the altar. Mr..
Birdseye, the old man, took his staff
and walked out over the hills, and in
n place where he had been scores of
times without noticing anything par
ticular, he saw the ground was very
dark, and he took his staff and turn ed
up the ground, and water started; and
he beclSoned to his servants, and they
came and brought pals and buckets
until all the family and all the flocks
and the herds were cared for; and then
they made troughs reaching from that
place down to the house and barn, and
,he water flowed, and it is living
ioun tain to-day.
Now, | call that old grandfather
Elijah, and l call that brook that be.
gan to roll then, and is rolling still,
the brook Cherith; and the lesson tc
ne and to all who hear it is, when you
ire in great stress of circumstances, |
pray and dig, dig and pray, and pray
md dig. How does that passage go? |
The mountains shall depart and the
Hills be removed, but my lovingkind-
ness shall not fail" If your 2er-
if your mecharign, if
your husbandry fail, look out
for ravens. If you have in your
dependency put God on trial and con.
demned Him as guilty of cruelty,
move to-day for new trial. If the
biography of your life is ever written,
will tell you what the first chapter,
.nd the middle chapter, and the last !
chapter will be about, if it is written
accurately. The first chapter about
mercy, the middle chapter about mercy,
.he last chapter about mercy. The |
mercy that lowered over your cradle. |
The mercy that will hover over your
grave. The mercy that will cover all |
between.
Again, this story of the text impress
'es me that relief came to this prophet !
With the most unexpected and with
impossible conveyance. If
t had been a robin-redbreast, or mu-
'ical meadow lark, or meek turtle
love, or sublime albatross that had
brought the food to Elijah, it would
lot have been so surprising. But, no.
It was a bird SO fierce and inauspicate |
that we have fashioned one of our |
most forceful and repulsive words out !
Of it-ravenous. That bird has q pas
sion for picking out the eyes of men
md of animals. 1t loves to maui the |
sick and the dying. 1t swallows with
'ultureps guzzle everything it can put |
is beals on; and yet all the food Elijah |
gets for six months or a year is from
ravens. So your supply is going to
come from an unexpected source.
You think some great-hearted, gen.
,rous man will come along and give
you his name on the back of your
lote, or he will go security for you in
some great enterprise. No, he will |
not. God will open the heart of some
ohylock toward you. Your relief will |
come from the most unexpected quar-
.er. The providence which seemed |
'minous will be to you more than that
which seemed suspicious. 1t will not
be chaffinch with breast and wing
dashed with white and brown and
chestnut; it will be black raven.
Mrs. Jane Pithey, of Chicago, we'll
known Chicago woman, was left by her
husband a widow with one-half dollar
md cottage. She was palsied, and
had mother 30 years of age to sup
port. The widowed soul every day
asked God for all that was needed in the
and the servant even was