Connecticut western news., 1898-08-18
,lorious promIsoa.
 When God Is Sought.

in government securities and block of stores and three ships. "Well," 7" the man says to himself, "it is silly for mo to pray, Give me this day my daily bread, when my pantry Is full and'the canals from the west are crowded with breadstuffs destined for my store houses. " Oh, my friends, if the com bined misfortunes and disasters of life have made you climb up into the arms of a sympathetic and compassionate God, through all eternity you will bless him that in this world "there was sharp rock on the one side and sharp rock on the other side."
 Again, that man Is in the crisis of the text who has home troubles and outside persecution at the same time. The world treats a man well just as long as it pays to treat him we'll. As long as it can manufacture success out of his bone and brain and muscle it fla vors him. The world fattens the horse 1t wants to drive. But let 8 man see 1t his duty to cross the track of the world, then every bush is full of horns and tusks thrust at him. They will belittle him. They will caricature him. They will call his generosity self aggrandize- ment and his piety sanotimoniousness The very worst persecution will some times come upon him from those who profess to be Christians.
 John Milton-great and good John Milton-so far forgot himself as to pray in so many words that his enemies might be eternally thrown down into the darkest and deepest gulf of he'll and be the undermost and most dejected and the lowest down vassals of perdition. And Martin Luther so far forgot him. self as to say in regard to his theolog- ical opponents, "Put them in whatever sauce you please, roasted, or fried, or baked, or stewed, or boiled, or hashed, they are nothing but asses. An, my friends, if John Milton or Martin Lu- ther could come down to such sourrility what may you not expect from less ele- vated opponents? Now, sometimes the world takes after them; the newspapers take after them; public opinion takes after them, and the unfortunate man is lied about until all the dictionary of Billingsgate is exhausted on him. You often see man whom you know to be good and pure and honest set upon by the world and mauled by whole oom- munities, while vicious men take on a supercilious air in condemnation of him, ns though Lord Jeffreys should write an essay on gentleness or Henry VIII talk about purity or King Herod take to blessing little children
 An Inspir.tion-
 Now, a certain amount of persecution rouses mans defiance, stirs his blood for magnificent battle and makes him 50 times more man than he would have been without the persecution. So l 1t was with the great reformer when he said, "I will not be put down; will be heard. !" And so 1t was with Willard, the preacher, in the time of Louis XL. When Louis XI sent word to him that unless he stopped preaching in that style he would throw him into the river, he replied. ''Tell the king that I will reach heaven sooner by water than he will reach it by fast horses" A cer- tain amount of persecution is tonic and inspiration, but too much of 1t and too long continued becomes the rock Bozez throwing dark shadow over a | mans life. What is he to do, then? Go home, you say. Good advice that. That is just the place for man to go when the world abuses him. Go home Blessed be God for our quiet and sympathetic 1 homes! But there is many man who has the reputation of having home when he has none. Through unthink- | ingness or precipitation there are many matches made that ought never to have been made. An officiating priest cannot alone unite couple. The Lord Al mighty must proclaim banns. There are many homes in which there is no sym pathy and no happiness and no good | cheer The olamor of the battle may
 not have been heard outside, but God knows. notwithstanding all the play Ing of the Wedding March, ,, and all the odor of the orange blossoms and the benediction of the officiating pastor, there has been no marriage. So some l times men have awakened to find on one side of them the rock of persecu- ton and on the other side of them the rock of domestic infelicity. What shall such one do? Do as Jonathan did I climb Get up the heights of Gods con- l solation, from which you may look down in triumph upon outside persecu- tion and home trouble. While good and great John Wesley was being silenced I by the magistrates and having his name written on the board fences of London
 in doggerel, at that very time his wife
 was making him all miserable as she
 could. acting as though she were pos
 sessed by the deviA, as I suppose she was, never doing him kindness until
 the day she ran awrry, so that he wrote
 in his diary these words; II did not
 forsake her; have not dismissed her
 I will not recall her." Planting one
 foot upon outside persecution and the
 other foot on home trouble, John Wes-
 ley climbed up into the heights ot
 Christian joy. and, after preaching 40,
 900 sermons and travelling gro, 00C
 miles, reached the heights of heaven,
 though in this world he had 1t hard
 enough-"a sharp rock on the one side
 and sharp rock on the other"
 l Glorious Promise.
 Again, that woman stands in the cri
 sis of the text who has bereavement and
 0 struggle for livelihood at the same
 time. Without mentioning names
 speak from observation. An, 1t Is 6
 hard thing for woman to make an
 honest living, even when her heart if
 not troubled and she has fair cheek
 and the magnetism of an exquisite pres
 ence. But now the husband or the ia
 ther is dead The expenses of the obse-
 quies have absorbed all that was left in
 the savings bank, and, wan and wasted
 with weeping and watching, she goes
 forth-a grave, hearse, coffin behind
 her-to contend for her existence and
 the existence of her children. When
 see such a battle as that open I shud.