The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1898-09-14

right, for they were divinely directed;
but the prophets of evil in our time
are generally false prophets. Some of
our weatherwise people prophesied we
would have summer of unparalleled
heat. 1t has been a very comfortable
summer. Last fall all the weather
prophets agreed in saying we should
have winter of extraordinary sever
ity, blizzard on the heels of blizzard.
1t was the mildest winter l ever re-
member to have passed. Indeed, the
autumn and spring almost showed
winter out of the procession. Real
troubles have no heralds running
ahead of their somber chariots, and no
one has any authority in our time to
announce their coming. Load yourself
up with hopeful words and deeds. The
hymn once sung in our churches is
unfit to be sung, for it says:
"We should suspect some danger near,
Where we possess delight"
In other words, manage to keep mis-
erable all the time. The old song sung
at the piano quarter of a century ago
was right, "Kind words can never die"
Such kind words have their nest in
kind hearts, and when they are
hatched out and take wing, they circle
round in flights that never cease, and
sportsman's gun cannot shoot them,
and storms cannot ruffle their wings,
and when they cease fight in these
lower skies of earth they sweep round
amid the higher attitudes of Heaven.
At Baltimore, talked into phono-
graph. The cylinder containing the
words was sent on to Washington, and
the next day that cylinder from an
other photographic instrument, wien
turned, gave back to Inc the very
words 1 uttered the day before, and
with the same intonations. Scold into
a phonograph, and it will scold back.
Pour mild words into phonograph
and it will return the gentleness. So
ciety and the world and the church
are monographs. Give them acerbity
and rough treatment, and acerbity and
rough treatment you will get back.
Give them practical friendliness, and
they will give back practical friendli-
ness. father asked his little daugh-
ter, "Mary, why is it that everybody
loves you?" She answered, II don't
know. unless it is because I love every
body" "a man that hath friends must
show himself friendly"
Oh, what glorious state of things
to have the friendship of God! Why,
we could afford to have all the world
against us and all other worlds against
us if we had God for us. He could in
n minute blot out this universe and in
another minute make better uni
verse. / have no idea that God tried
hard when he made all things. The
most brilliant thing known to us is
light, and for the creation of that he
only used word of command. AS
out of flint frontiersman strikes
a spark, so out of one word God struck
the MONDAY sun. For the making of
| the present universe / do not read
that God litter so much as finger.
II God is your friend you cannot go
out of the world too quickly or sud
denly, so far as your own happiness is
concerned. There were two Christians
who entered Heaven; the one was
standing at a window in perfect
lihealth, watching shower, and the
| lightning instantly slew him, but the
lightning did not flash down the sky
as swiftly as his spirit flashed upward.
The Christian man who died on the
same day next door had been for a
year or two failing in health, and for
the last three months had suffered
from a disease that made the nights
sleepless and the days an anguish. Do
you not really think that the case of
the one who went instantly was more
desirable than the one who entered the
shining gate through long lane of
insomnia and congestion? In the one
case it was like your standing wearily
at a door, knocking and waiting, and
wondering if it will ever open, and
knocking and waiting again, while in
the other case it was swinging open
of the door at the first touch of your
knuckle. Give your friendship to God,
and have Gods friendship for you, and
even the worst accident will be a vic
tory.
How refreshing is human friend
ship; and true friends, what priceless
treasures! When sickness comes, and
trouble comes, and death comes, we
send for our friends first of all, and
their appearance in our doorway in any
crisis is reinforcement, and when they
have entered we say: "Now it is all
right" Oh, what would we do with
out personal friends, business friends
family friends? But we want some
thing mightier than human friendship
in the great eXigencies.
When Jonathan Edwards, in his final
hour, had given the last goodbye to
all his earthly friends, he turned on
his pillow and closed his eyes, con-
fidently saying: "Now where is Jesus
of Nazareth, my true and never-failing
Friend?" Yes, admire human friend
ship as seen in the case of David and
Jonathan, of Paul and Onesiphorus, OF
Herder and Goethe, of Goldsmith and
Reynolds, of Beaumont and Fletcher
of Cowley and Harvey, of Erasmus and
Thomas Moore, of Lessing and Men.
delssohn, of Lady Churchill and Prin-
cess Anne, of Orestes and Plyades
each requesting that himself might
take the point of the dagger, so the
other might be spared; of Epaminon.
das and Pelopidas, who locked their
shields in battle, determined to die to-
gether; but the grandest, the might
est, the tenderest friendship in all the
universe is the friendship between