Connecticut western news., 1897-06-03

that to the students and handling the wounded leg, and was about to proceed to amputation when the poor man leap ed from the table and hobbled to the door and said, Gentlemen, am sorry to disappoint you, but by the help of God will die with my leg on." What terrific loss is the loss of our physical facultiesp'
 The way the battle of Crecy was de- oided 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 brotherl 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 1t on somewhere else. As Augustus, the emperor, took off day from February, making it the shortest month in the year, and added 1t to Au- gust, the month named after himself, so advantages taken from one part of your nature will be added on to another. But 1t is amazing how much of the world work has been done by men of subtraoted 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 Thom- as Carlyle, the dyspeptio martyr, was given the commission to drive cant out of the worlds literature The Rev. Thomas Stockton of Philadelphia, with ono 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 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 ono good blow with this sword of minep' 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, O men and women of depleted or crippled physical faculties, and see what, by the special help of God, you can accomplish l
 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 clutohed him by the bridle and turned his head away from the shadow and toward the sun, and the horse's agitation was gone, and Alexander mounted him and rode off, to the astonisbment of all who stood by. And what you people need is to have your sight turned away from the shadows of your earthly lot, over which you have so long pondered, and your head turned toward the sun-the glori- ous sun of gospel consolation and Chris tian hope and spiritual triumph.
 And then remember that all physical disadvantages will after awhile vanish Let those who have been rheumatismed out of 8 foot, or cataracted out of an eye, or by the perpetual roar of our cit ies thun6ered out of an ear, look for ward to the day when this old tenement house of flesh will come down and better one shall be builded. The resur- reotion morning will provide you with a better outfit. Either the unstrung, worn out, blunted and crippled organs W not know them, or an entire new set of eyes and ears and feet will be given you. Just what it means by corruption putting on interruption we do not know, save that it will be glory ineffa- ble, no limping in heaven, no straining of the eyesight to see things little way off, no putting of the hand behind the ear to double the capacity of the tympanum, but faculties perfect, all the keys of the instrument attuned for the sweep of the fingers of ecstasy. But until that day of resumption comes let us bear each other burdens and so full fill the law of Christ.
 Another form of disadvantage under which many labor is lack of early edu- cation. There will be no excuse for ig- noranoe in the next generation. Free schools and illimitable opportunity of education will make ignorance crime believe in compulsory education, and those parents who neglect to put their children under educational advantages have but one right left, and that is the penitentiary. But there are multitudes of men and women in midlife who have had no opportunity. Free schools had not yet been established, and vast null titudes had little or no school at all They feel it when as Christian men they come to speak or pray in religious assemblies or public occasions, patriotic or political or educational. They are silent because they do not feel compe- tent. They owe nothing to English grammar, or geography, or belles let tres. They would not know partici- pie from a pronoun if they met it many times day. Many of the most success ful merchants of America and men in high political places cannot write an accurate letter on any theme. They are completely dependent upon clerks, and deputies, and stenographers, to make things right. I knew literary man who in other years in this city made his fortune by writing speeches for con- gressmen or fixing them up for The