The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-05-13

y NAA AA~ cA1Ay ma O. VI AA
sects, the green locust, about two
inches long, roasted, a disgusting food.
These insects were caught and the
wings and legs torn off, and they were
stuck on wooden spits and turned be-
fore the fire. The Bedouins pack them
in salt and carry them in sacks. What
a menu for John the Baptist, Through
what deprivation he came TO what ex-
ultatiOn!
and you will have TO go DOWN before
you go up. From the pit in which his.
brothers threw him and the prison in
which his enemies incarcerated him
Joseph rose to Egyptian prime min
lister. Elijah, who was to be the great
est Of all the ancient prophets; Elijah,
who made King Ahab's knees knock to-
gether with the prophecy that the dogs
would be his only undertakers; Elijah
whose one prayer brought more than
three years Of drought and whose other
praye~ brought drenching showers: the
man who wrapped up his cape of sheep
skin into a roll and with it cut a path
through raging Jordan for just two
men to pass over; the man who with a
wheel of fire rode over death and es-
capped into the skies without mOrtuary
disintegratiOn; the man VINO, thOus-
ands of years after, was called out of
the eternities to stand beside Jesus
Christ on Mount Tabor when ii was
abiaze with the splendOrs of transtig-
uration-this man Ould look back at
the time when voracious and filthy
ravens We're his only catererers.
You see John Knox preaching the
~OrOnati sermon of James VI and ar
raigning Queen Mary n Lord Darnley
in a public discourse at Edinburg and
telling the French ambassador to go
home and call his king a murderer,
John Knox making all Chirstendom feel
his moral power and at his brutal the
Earl of Morton saying, Here lieth a
man who in his life never feared the
face of man" Where did John Knox
get much of the schooling for such re-
sounding and everlasting achievement?
He got it while in chains pulling at
the boats oar in French captivity. So
the p%rivatiOns and h~ardships of your
life may on a smaller scale be the pre-
face and introduction to usefulness and
victory.
See also in his call of Moses that God
has a great memory -Four hundred
years before he had promised the de-
liverance of the oppressed Israelites Of
Egypt. The clock Of time has struck
the hour land now Moses is called to
the work of rescue. FOu hundred years
is a very long time, but you see God
can remember a promise 400 years as
well as you can remember 400 minutes
L u llu1luIcu years lIlCluuc oil yOu1
ancestry that you know anything about
and all the promises made to them,
n we may expect fulfillment in our
heart and life blessings that were pre-
dicted to our Christian ancestry CEN
turtles ago. You have a dim remem-
brance, if any remembrance at all, Of
| your great-grand-father, but God sees
those who were On their knees in 1898
as we'll as those on their knees in 1898,
and the blessings he promised the
former and their descendants have ar
rived or will arrive. While pity is not
hereditary it is a grand thing to lave
! had a pious ancestry. So God in this
| chapter calls up the pedigree of the
| people whom Moses was to deliver, and
| Moses is ordered to say to them, 1.-The
Lord God of your fathers, the God of
| Abraham, the God of Isaac and of
Jacob, hath sent me unto YOU" If
that thought be divinely accurate, let
me ask, What are we doing by prayer
and by a holy life for the redemption of
| only with the people of the latter part
of the nineteenth century. but with
those in the closing of the twentieth
| century and the closing of the twenty
first century and the closing of the
~tWenty-second century and the closing
of the tWenty-third century. For 400
| years, if the world continues to swing
1 I'LL lhdl ill.,, VI i IL uIOpS, IIlC HUI
| withstanding the influence will go on
in other ATTITUDES and longitudes Of
| Gods universe.
No one realizes how great he is for
| good or for evil. There are branchings
| out and rebounds and reverberations
and Celebrations of influence that can
not. be estimated. The so or 100 years
! of our earthly stay is only a small part
of our sphere. The flap Of the wing of
the destroying angel that smote the
| Egyptian Oppressors, the wash of the
| Red sea over the heads of the drown
ed Egyptians, were all fulfllments of
promises four centuries old. And
things occur in your life and in mine
that we annot account for. They may
be the echoes of what was promised in
the sixteenth or seventeenth century.
Oh, the prolongation of the divine
memory!
WORK FOR THE AGED.
Notice also that Moses was 80 years
of age when he got his call to become
the Israelitish deliverer. Forty years he
I had lived in palaces as a prince: an
other forty years he had lived in the
wilderness of Arabia. I SHOULD not