Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1897-05-19

crate calculation before you could tell me
how many pounds Of food and how many
yards OF clothing would be necessary for
you and your family, but God knows with
out any calculation. You have a plate at
his table, and you are going to be waited
on, unless you act like a naughty child and
Kick and scramble and pound saucily the
plate and try to upset things.
God has vast family, and everything il
methodized, and you are going to be- served
IL you will only wait your turn God has
already ordered all the suits of clothes YOU
Will ever need, down to the last suit in
which you will be laid out God has already
ordered all the food you will ever eat down
to the last crumb that will be put In your
mouth in the dying sacrament 1t NAV not
be Just the kind of food or apparel we would
prefer The sensible parent depends on
his sn judgment as to what ought to be
the apparel and the food of the minor In
the family. The child would say Give me
sugars and confections." "Oh, noi' saws
the parent. you must have something
palmer first" The child would say, "Oh,
give me these great blotches of color in the
sarmentl No, says the parent; that
wouldn't be suitable"
Now, God is our Father, and we are min
ors, and He Is going to clothe us and feed
US, although He may not always Weld to
our infantile wish for the sweet and glitter
These ravens of the text did not bring
pomegranates from the glittering platter
Of King Ahab They brought bread and
milk. God had all the heavens and the
earth before Him and under Him. and vet
He sends this plain food, because it was best
Tor Elijah to have it. Oh, be strong nv
bearer. in the fact that the same God is GO
ng to supply you. 1t is never hard times
with Him. His ships never break on the
rocks. His banks never fail. He has the
supply for you, and He has the means for
sending it. He has not only the cargo, but
:he ship. II it were necessary, He would
ravens reaching from His gate to yours un-
Ill the food would be flung down the sky
from beak to beak and from talon to talon.
Notice again in this story of the text that
the ravens did not allow Eliza to hoard up
, surplus. They did not bring enough on
Monday to last all the week. They did not
orlng enough one morning to last until the
next morning. They came twice a day and
brought just enough for one time You
known as well as | that the great fret of the
world is that We want Il surplus We want
the ravens to bring enough for ifty years
You have more confidence in the Wash
lngton banks or Bank of England than you
have In the Royal Bank Of Heaven. You
say: All that is very poetic, but you may
have the black ravens. Give me the gold
eagles" We had better be content with
Just enough. If in the morning your fam
lily eat up all the food there is in the house
do not sit down and cry and saw, Il don't
know where the next meal is to come FROM
About 5, or &, or O'Clock in the morning
Just look up, and you will see two black
spots on the sky, and you will hear the flap
ping Of wing, and instead of Edgar A. Poe's
insane raven aiight on the chamber door
only this and nothing more" you will
lind 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 infinite in resource When the city
Of Rochelle was besieged and the inhabi-
tants were dying of the famine the tides
washed up on the beach as never before,
and as never since, enough shellhsh 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 crops failed, but in ESSEX,
on the rocks, in a place where they had
neither sown nor cultured great crop of
peas grew until they filed 100 measures,
and there ware blossomins vines enough.
promising as much more
But why go so far2 I can give you
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 aud
fountains of the neighbors. But these after
awhile began to fail, and the neighbors said
to Mr.. Birdseye, OF whom 1 shall speak:
You must not send your focks and herds
down here any more. Our wells a-e giving
out" Mr.. Birdseye, the old Christian man.
gathered his family at the altar, and with
his family he gathered the slaves of the
household-for bondage was then in vogue
In Connecticut-and 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 fiocks might not perish.
The family from th.a aIta
Birdseye, the old man, took his staff and
walked out over the hills, and in a place
where he had seen scores of times without
noticing anything particular, he saw the
ground was very dark and he took his
staff and turned up the ground, the water
started, and he beckoned to his servants,
and they came and brought pals and
buckets until all the family and all the
focks and the herds We're cared for and
then they made troughs reaching from
that place down to the house and barn
and the water flowed, and it is a living
fountain day.
Now call that old grandfather Elijah
and call that brook that began to roll
then and is rolling still the brook Cherith,
and the lesson to me and to all who hear il
Is, when you are in great stress OF circum-
stances, pray aud dig, dig and pray and
pray and dig. How does that passage go?
''The mountains shall depart and the hills
be removed, but My loving kindness shall
not fail" If your merchandise, il your
mechanism, il your husbandry fail, look out
for ravens. II you have in your despond-
ency put God trial and condemned
Him as guilty Of cruelty, l move to-day for
a new trial If the biography of your life
is ever written, will tell you what the
first chapter and the middle chapter and
he last chapter will be about if it is writ
zen accurately. The first chapter about
mercy, the middle chapter about mercy
I,,N oh Boz -,
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 impresses me
that relief came to this prophet with the
most unexpected and with seemingly i'm
possible conveyance. If it had been a
robin redbreaSt, or a musical meadow lark
or u meek turtledove, or a sublime alba
tross that had brought the food to Elijah
1t would not have been so surprising But
no. 1t was bird so fierce and inauspicate
that we have fashioned one of our most
fOrceful and repulsive words out of it
ravenous. That bird has a passion for
picking out the eyes of men and of ami
mails. 1t loves to maui the sick and the
dying. 1t swallows with vuturous guzZie
everything it can put its beak on, and yet
all the food Elajah gets for six months or
a year is from ravens. So your supply is
from an unexpected source.
man will come along and give you his name
on the back of your note, or he will go se-
curity for you in some great enterprise.
No, he will not. God will open the heart OF
some Shylock toward you. Your relief will
come from the most unexpected quarter
The providence which seemed ominous
will be to you more than that which seemed
auspiciOus. 1t will not be chaffinch with
breast and wing dashed with white and
| brown and chestnut. 1t will be black
raven.
Here is wnere we all make our mistak
| and that is in regard to the color OF God
| providence. A white providence comes t
| US, and we say, "Oh, il is mercyl'' Then
! black providence comes toward US, and W
| saw, ''Oh. that is disasteri'' The white pro
vidence comes to you, and you have grea
business success, and you have 800 900, an
| you get proud. and you get Independent ,
God. and You begin to feel that the praye
"Give me this day my daily bread" is IL
appropriate for you, for you have nal
provision for 100 years. Then blac
J providence comes, and it sweeps everythin
I aWay and then Won begin to Dray and yn