The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1898-03-02

was always busy pulling them back.
All we, like sheep, have gone astray,
and had it not been for the shepherds
crook, we would have fallen, long ago,
over the precipices.
Here is man who is making too
much money. He is getting very vain.
He says, "After while l shall be in
dependent of all the world. Oh, my
soul, eat, drink, and be merry" Busi-
ness disaster comes to him. What is
God going to do with him? Has God
any grudge against him? Oh, no. God
is throwing over him the shepherds
crook and pulling him back into better
pastures. Here is man who has al
ways been well. He has never had any
sympathy for invalids; he calls them
coughing, wheeling nuisances. After a
while sickness comes to him. He does
not understand what God is going to do
with him. He says, ''Is the Lord angry
with me?" Oh, no. With the
shepherds crook he has been
pulled back into better pas
lures. Here is happy household
circle. The parent does not realize
the truth that these children are only
loaned to him, and he forgets from
what source came his domestic bless
ings. Sickness drops upon those chill
dren and death swoops upon little
one. He says: SIS God angry with me?"
No. His shepherds crook pulls him
back into better pastures. l do not
know what would have become of us if
it had not been for the shepherds
crook. Oh, the mercies ofour troubles!
You take up apples and plums from
under the shade of the trees, and the
very best fruit of Christian character
we find in the deep shade of trouble.
When was on the steamer, coming
across the ocean, got cinder in my
eye, and several persons tried to get it
out very gently, but it could not be
taken out in that way. Twas told that
the engineer had facility in such
cases. went to him. He put his large,
sooty hands on me, took a knife, and
wrapped the lid of the eye around the
knife. expected to be hurt very much
but without any pain, and instantly,
he removed the cinder. Oh, there come
times in our Christian life, when our
spiritual vision is being spoiled, and all
gentle appliances fail. Then there
comes some giant trouble, and black
handed, lays hold of us and removes
that which would have ruined our
vision forever. l will gather all your
joys together in one regiment of ten
companies, and will put them under
Col. Joy. Then l will gather all your
sorrows together in one regiment of
ten companies, and put them under
| Col. Breakheart. Then l will ask,
which of these regiments has gained
for you the greater spiritual victories?
Certainly that under Col. Breakheart.
In the time of war, you may remem-
ber, at the south and north, the ques-
tion was whether the black troops
would fight, but when they were put
into the struggle on both sides they did
heroically. In the great day of eter-
nifty it will be found that it was not
the white regiment of joys that gained
your greatest successes, but the black
troops of trouble, misfortune, and dis
aster. Where you have gained one
spiritual success from your prosperity,
you have gained ten spiritual sue
cesses from your adversely.
There is no animal that struggles
more violently than a sheep when you
corner it and catch hold of it. Down
in the glen l see group of men around
a lost sheep. A plowman comes along
and seizes the sheep, and tries to pacify
it, but it is more frightened than ever.
A miller comes along, puts down his
grist, and caresses the sheep, and it
seems as if it would die of fright. After
a while some one breaks through the
thicket. He says: LET me have the
poor thing" He comes up and lays his
arms around the sheep and it is imme-
diately quiet. Who is the last man that
comes? 1t is the shepherd. All, my
friends, be not afraid of the shepherds
crook. 1t is never used on you, save in
mercy, to pull you back. The hard,
cold iceberg of trouble will melt in the
warm gulf stream of divine sympathy.
There is one passage l think you
misinterpret: ''The bruised reed he
will not break" Do you know that the
shepherd in olden times played upon
these reeds? They were very easily
bruised, but when they were bruised
they were never mended. The shep-
herd could so easily make another one
he would snap the old one and throw it
away and get another. The Bible says
it is not SO with our Shepherd. When
the music is gone out of mans soul
God does not snap him in twain and
throw him away. He mends and re-
stores. 1.-THE bruised reed He will not
break"
When in the o'erhanging heavens Of fate,
The threatened clouds of darkness dwell,
Then let us humbly watch and wait;
1t shall be well, 1t shall be we'll
And when the storm has passed away
And sunshine smiles on food and fell,
How sweet to think, how sweet TO say,
1t has been we'll, it has been well
Next | speak of the shepherds dogs.
They watch the straying sheep, and
drive them back again. Every shep-
herd has his dog-from the nomads of
the Bible times, down to the Scotch
herdsman watching his focks on the
Grampian hills. Our shepherd employs
the criticisms and prosecutions of the
world as his dogs. There are those,
you know, whose whole work is to
watch the inconsistencies of Chris
tians; and bark at them. If one of
Gods sheep gets astray, the world