Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1897-05-31
men have magnificently conquered the
disasters of the name inflicted upon
The Crippled struggler.

disasters of the name inflicted upon
| them.
The Crippled Struggler.
Again, many people labor under the
misfortune of incomplete physical equip
ment We are by our Creator SO eco
nomically built that we cannot afford
the obliteration Of any physical faculty.
| We want our two eyes, our two ears,
our two hands, our two feet, our eight
/ fingers and two thumbs Yet what null
titudes of people have but one eye or
| but one foot! The ordinary casualties
of life have been quadrupled, quintu
pied, sextupled, aye, centupled, in our
time by the civil war, and at the north
| and south great multitude are fight
! ing the battle of life with half or less
than half the needed physical arma-
ments I do not wonder at the pathos
| of soldier during the war, who, when
! told that be must have his hand ampu-
| tated, said, doctor, can't you save it?''
and when told that it was impossible
said, with tears rolling down his
cheeks: "Well, then, goodby, old hand.
hate to part with you. You have done
me good service for many years, but
it seems you must go. Goodby."
A celebrated surgeon told me of a
scene in the clinical department of one
of the New York hospitals, when poor
man with a wounded leg was brought
in before the students to be operated on.
The surgeon was pointing out this and
that to the students and handling the
wounded leg, and was about to proceed
to amputation when the poor man leap
cd no FOL md
door and said, Gentlemen, I am sorry
to disappoint you, but by the help of
God I will die with my leg on" What
terrific loss is the loss of our physical
facultiesV'
The way the battle of Crecy was de-
cided against France was by the Welsh
men killing the French horses, and that
brought their riders to the ground. And
when you cripple this body. which is
merely the animal ON which the soul
rides, you may sometimes defeat the
soul.
Gods Help.
Yet how many suffer from this phys
ical taking off! Good cheer, my brother!
God will make it up to you somehow.
The grace, the sympathy of God, will
be more to you than anything you have
lost. If God allows part of your re-
sources to be cut off in one place, he
will add it on somewhere else. AS
Augustus, the emperor, took off a day
from February, making it the shortest
month in the year, and added it to Au-
gust, the month named after himself, SO
advantages taken from one part of your
nature will be added on to another.
d. l. 6
world IS work has been done by men of
subtracted physical organization. S. S.
Preston, the great orator of the south
west, went limping all his life, but
there was no foot put down upon any
platform of his day that resounded SO far
as his clubfoot. Beethoven was so deaf
that he could not hear the crash of the
orchestra rendering his oratorios. Thorn
as Carlyle, the dyspeptic martyr, was
given the commission to drive can't
out of the worlds literature. The Rev.
Thomas Stockton of Philadelphia, with
one lung raised his audience nearer heav-
en- than most ministers can raise them
with two lungs. In the banks, the insur-
ance companies, the commercial estab-
lishments, the reformatory associations,
the churches, there are tens of thOus-
ands of men and women today doubled
up with rheumatism or subject to the
neuralgias or with only fragments of
limbs, the rest of which they left at
Chattanooga or South Mountain or the
Wilderness, and they are worth more to
the world, and more to the church, and
more to God than those of US who have
never so much as had a finger joint
stiffened by felon.
Put to full use all the faculties that
remain and charge on all opposing Cir
cumstances with the determination of
John of Bohemia, who was totally
blind, and yet at battle cried out, II
pray and beseech you to lead me SO far
into the fight that may strike one good
blow with this sword of mine!'' Do not
think so much of what faculties you
have lost as of what faculties remain.
You have enough left to make yourself
felt in three worlds, while you help the
earth and balk hell and win heaven.
Arise from your discouragements, 0
men and women of depleted or crippled
physical faculties, and see what, by the
special help of God, you can accomplish
Alexander and Bucephalus.
The skilled horsemen stood around
Bucephalus, unable to mount or man
age him, so wild was the steed. But
Alexander noticed that the sight of his
own shadow seemed to disturb the
horse. So Alexander clutehed him by
the bride and turned his head away
from the shadow and toward the sun,
and the horses agitation was gore, and
Alexander mounted him and rode off,
fo ha onv1t of all
by. And what you people need is to
have your sight turned away from th
shadows of your earthly lot, over which