The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-12-16

has Hdu, pCIlcCl nEdiln, di2 v A0SI
a child, and has always been popular
and never had business struggle or
misfortune, who is distinguished for
goodness, pull your wire for a tele-
graph messenger boy and send me
word, and / will drop everything and
go right away to look at him. There
never has been a man like that and
never will be. Who are those arrogant,
~self-conceited creatures who move
about without sympathy for others and
who think more of a st. Bernard dog
or an Alderney COW or a outhdow
sheep or a Berkshire pig that Of a
man? They never had any trouble, or
the trouble was never sancti1ed. VINO
are those men who listen with moist
eye as you tell them of suffering and
who have a pathos in their voice and
a kindness in their manner and an ex-
cuse or an alienation for those gone
astray? They are the men who ave
graduated at the Royal Academy of
Trouble, and they have the diploma
written in wrinkles on their own
nance My, MY What ~heartaches
they had What tears they have wepti
What injustice they have suffered!
The mightiest influence for publication
and salvation is trouble. Nc diamond
fit for a crown until it is cut. No
wheat fit for bread till it is ground.
STRENGTH FROM SORROW.
There are only three things that can
break off a chain-a hammer, a file or
a fire-and trouble is all three Of them.
The greatest writer's, orators and re-
formers get much of their force from
trouble. What gave to Washington IT.
3 wing that exquisite tenderness and pa
thos which will make his books favor
ties while the English language con-
tinues to be written and spoken? An
early heartbreak, that he never once
mentioned, n when 30 years after the
death Of Matilda Hoffman, who was
to have been his bride, her father
picked up a piece Of embroidery and
said, That is a piece Of poor Matilda's
workmanship Washington Irving
sank from liberty into silence and
walked away. Out of that lifetime
grief the great author dipped his pens
mightiest reinforcement. Calvin's I'm
stitutes Of Religion" than which a
more wonderful book was never written.
by human hand, was begun by the au-
thor at % years of age, because of the
persecution by Francis, king of France.
Faraday tOiled for all time on a salary
Of ESQ a year and candles. AS every
brick of he wall of Babylon was
stamped with the letter N, standing for
Nebuchadnezzar, so every part of the
temple Of Christian achievement is
stamped with the letter T, standing for
trouble.
When in England a man is honored
with knighthood, he is struck with the
fiat of the sword. Blu those who have
come to knighthood in the kingdom Of
God were first struck, not with the flat
Of the sword, but with the keen edge
of the scimeter. To build his magnifi-
cence of character Paul could not have
spared one lash, one prison, one ston-
ing, one anathema, one poisonous viper
from the hand, one shipwreck. What
is true of individuals is true of nations.
The horrors of the American Revolu-
ton gave this country this side of the
Mississippi river to independence, and
the conflict between England and
France gave the most Of this country
west of the Mississippi to the United
States. France owned it, but Napole-
on, fearing that England would take
1t, practically made a present to the
United States-for he received only
SIS, 600, 900 for Louisiana, Missouri, Ar
kansas, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Min
nesota, Colorado, Dakota, Montana,
Wyoming n the Indian Territory,
Out of the fire of the American Revo-
luton came this country east Of the
Mississippi, out of the European war
came that west of the Mississippi river
The British empire rose to it's present
overtowering grandeur through gun
powder plot and Guy Fawkes' conspira-
cy and Northampton insurrection and
Walter Raleigh's b%eheading and Ba-
cons bribery and CrOmwelPs dissolu-
ton Of parliament and the battles OF
Edge Hill and the vicissitudes of centu-
ries.
TEMPERED BY FIRE.
So the earth itself, before it coulG
become an appropriate and beautiful
residence for the human family, had
according to geology, to be washed by
universal deluge and scorched anc
maze ~ncandescent by universal fires
and pounded by sledge hammer anG
lcebergs and wrenched by earthquakes
that split continents and shaken BY
that tossed mountains anC
passed through the catastrophes OF
thousands Of years before paradise be.
came possible and the groves could
snake out their green banners and the
first garden pour its carnage of colol
between the Gihon and the Hiddekel
Irouble-a good thing for the rocks
a good thing for nations, as we'll as
a good thing for individuals. So wher
you push against me with a sharr
Interrogation point, WHY do the GOOD
suffer? I open the lark saying on q
harp, and, though I can neither play
an organ or cOrnet or hautboy or busle
or clariOnet, I lave taken some les.
sons on the gospel harp, and if you
would X to hear me / will play you
these: A things work together TO,
good to those who love Cod Now nc
Christening for the present seemeth tc
be joyous, but grie vous. Nevertheless
afterward it yieldeth the peaceable
fruit Of righteousness unto them which
are exercised thereby" weeping may
endure for a night, but joy cometh ir
the morning." What a sweet thing is
a harp, and I wonder not that ir
Wales, the country Of my ancestors
n harp has become the national in.
strument, and that they have festivals
where great prizes are offered in thu
competition bet ween harp and harp
or that weird Sebastian Erard was
much of his time bent over this chord.
ed and vibrating triangle. and was no
satisfied until he la given it a com
pass of six octavos, from E to E with
all the semitones, or that when Kine
Saul was demented the son of Jess
came before him and, putting his fin.
gers among the charmed strings OF
n harp, played the devil out of tn;