The Yale expositor., 1898-12-16


kept in your room for two months
cheerful and hopeful, and that you
had not one word of complaint, and
asked all about everybody, and rejoic-
ed in the success of your business
friends, although your own business
had almost come to a standstill
through your absence from store or
office or shop, and that you sent your
love to all your old friends, and told
them that II you did not meet them
again in this world, you hoped to meet
them in dominions seraphic, with q
! quiet word Of advice from you to the
man who carried the message about
the Importance of his not neglecting
his own soul, but through Christ seek
ing something better than this world
could give him-why, all the business
men in the counting-room say, Good!
Now that is Ieligionw And the clerks
| get hold OF the story, and talk it over
so that the weigher and cooper and
hickman, standing on the doorstep,
say: That is splendid! Now, that is
what l call religion"
1t is a good thing to preach on a
Sunday morning. the people assembled
in most respectable attire and seated
on soft cushions, the preacher stand
ing In neatly upholstered pulpit, sur
rounded by personal friends, aud after
an inspiring hymn has been sung. AID
that sermon, II preached in faith, will
do good; but the most effective SER
mon is preached by one seated in
dressing-gown, in an armchair into
which the invalid has with much care
| been lifted, the surrounding shelves
filled with medicine bottles, some to
produce sleep, some for the relief Of
sudden paroXysm, some for stimulant,
some for tonic, some for alodyne, and
some for febrifuge, the pale preacher
quoting promises Of the gospel, telling
Of the glories of q sympathetic Christ,
| :sEu-lrg the one or two or three per-
son5 who hcar it OF the mighty rein
forcements of religion. You say that
to such 4 sermon there are only one
or two to three hearers. Aye! But the
visitor calling at that rocn, then clos
ing the door softly and going away,
tells the story, and the whole neigh
borhood hears il, and II will take all
eternity to realize the grand and up
lifting influence of that sermon about
! God and the soul, though preached TO
an audience OF only one man or one
woman. The Lord has ordained all
such invalids for q style OF usefulness
which athletics and men OF two huc-
dred healthy avoirdupois cannot affccs.
! 1t was not an enemy that fastened you
in that one room or sent you on
crutches, the longest Journey you have
made for many weeks being from bed
to sofa and from sofa to looking glass.
where you are shocked at the pallor
OF your own cheek and the pinched-
ness Of your features; then back again
| from mirror to sofa and sofa to bed.
with a long sigh, saying. How good
it feels to get back again to my old
place on the pillow!" Remember who
it is that appointed the day, when,
for the first time in many years, you
could not go to business. and who has
kept a record of all the weary days
and all the sleepless nights OF your ex-
| lie from the world. Oh, weary man I!
Oh, feeble woman! 1t was the Lord
who shut you in. Do you remember
that some of the noblest and best of
men have been prisoners? Ezekiel n
prisoner, jeremiah a prisoner, Paul
a prisoner, St John a prisoner, John
Bunyan a prisoner. Though human
hate seemed to have all to do with
them, really the Lord shut them in.
Do you forget when, in childhood
you danced and skipped because you
were so full of life you had not pa
thence to walk, and in after years you
climbed the mountains of Switzerland
putting your alpenstocl high up on
glaciers which few others ever dared
and jumped long reaches in compe-
tition, and after walk of ten miles
you came in jocund as the morning
Oh, you shut-ins! Thank God for q
vivid memory Of the times when you
were free as the chamois on the rocks
as the eagle going straight for tho
sun. When the rain pounded the rooi
of the ark the eight voyagers on that
craft did not forget the time when II
gaily battered in a summer shower
and when the door OF the ark shut tC
keep out the tempest, they did not for.
get the time when the door Of theil
home in Armenia was closed to keel
out the spring rains which came t
all the cups of lily and honeysucklt
and make all the trees OF the WOOD
clap their hands
Notice, also, that there was limit 4
the shut-in experience of those an
cient mariners. / suppose the fort!
days of the descending and uprising
floods, and the $50 days before tn
passengers could 20 ashore must have
seemed 20 those eight people in thu
big boat ike a small eternity. Rain
rain, rain!" said the wife of Noah
will it never stop" For forty morn
ings they looked out and saw not on
patch of blue sky Floating aroun'
amid the peaks Of mountains. Shem
and Ham, and Japheth had t