Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1898-05-25
SERMONS OF THE DAY

Cn0ICe .
Bible Scene is Drawn = Practical ana
Inspiring Lesson For All Glasses Oh
People-The Calling For Special Work.
TEXT: "Now Moses kept the flock OF
Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest Oh
idian."-Exodus ill.,, 1.
In the southeastern part OF Arabia a man
Is sitting by a well. 1t is the arid country
and water Is scarce, SO that well Is OF
great value. and fiocks and herds are
driven vast distances to have their thirst
Stacked. Jethro, a Midianite sheik and
priest, was so fortunate as to have seven
daughters, and they are practical girls,
and yonder they come, driving the sheep
and cattle and camels Of their father TO
the watering. They lower the buckets
and then pull them mp, the water piashlnG
on the stones and chilling their feet, ana
the troughs are filed. Who is that man
out there, sitting uncOncerned and LOOKING
on? Why does he not come and help the
women In this hard work OF drawing waterE
But no sooner have the dry lips AMI pant
ing nostrils OF the fiOcks begun to cool
little in the brimming trough OF the well
than some rough Bedouin shepherds breaT
in upon the scene. and with clubs anu
shouts drive back the animals that were
drinking and alright these girls until they
fy in retreat and the focks or these i'll
hammered shepherds are driven to the
troughs, taking the places OF the other
6ocks.
Now that man sitting by the well begins
to color up, and his eye flashes with indig'
nation, and all the galiantry OF his nature
Is aroused. 1t is Moses who naturally had
a quick temper, anyhow, as he demon
strated on one occasion when he saw an
Egyptian depressing an lsraelite ana gave
the Egyptian a sudden clip and buried him
in the sand. and as he showed afterward
when he broke all the Ten Commandments
at once by shattering the two granite slabs
on which the law was written. But the in
justice Of this treatment OF the seven girls
sets him on fire with wrath, and he taxes
this shepherd by the throat. and pushes
back another shepherd till he falls over the
trough, and aims stunning blow between
the eyes Of another. as he cries. 'Begone
you villainsp' and he boots and roars at
the sheep and cattle and camels of these
invaders and drives them back: and hav-
ing cleared the place of the desperadoes,
he told the seven girls OF this Midianite
sheik to gather their fiocks together and
bring them again to the watering.
The fact that it took the seven daughters
to drive the flocks to the well implies that
they were immense flocks, and that her
father was a man Of wealth. What was
the use of Zipporah's bemeaning herself
with work when she might have reclined
on the hillside near her fathers tent. and
plucked buttercups, and dreamed out ro-
mances, and sighed idly to the winds, and
wept over imaginary songs to the brooks.
No, she knew that work was honorable,
and that every girl ought to have some
thing to do, and so she starts with the
bleating and lowing and believing and
neighing droves to the well for the watering
Around every home there are focks and
droves Of cares and anxieties, and every
daughter of the family, though there be
seven, ought to be doing her part to take
care of the iocks. In many households,
not only is Zipporah, but all her sisters.
without practical and useful employments.
them fortunate
and prosperous matrimonial alliance, but
some lounger like themselves will come
along, and after counting the large num-
ber Of father Jethro's sheep and camels
will make proposal that will be accepted:
and neither of them having done anything
more practical than to chew chocolate
caramels, the two nothngs will start on
the road of life together, every step more
and more a failure. That daughter of the
Midianitish sheik will never find her Moses.
There is a question that every father and
mother ought to ask the daughter at break
fast or tea table, and that all the daugh-
ters of the wealthy sheiK ought to ask each
other: "What would you do II the family
hortune should fail, IL sickness should
PROSTATE the breadwinner, II the hocks OF
Jethro should be destroyed by sudden ex-
eursion Of wolves and bears and hyenas
from the mountain? What would you do
for a living2 Could YOU support yourself?
Can you take care of an invalid mother or
brother or sister as well as yourself?" Yea,
bring it down to what any day might come
to a prosperous family. "Can you cook a
dinner If the servants should make a strike
for higher wages and leave that merning?"
There needs to be peaceful yet radical
revolution among most Of the prosperous
homes Of America, by which the elegant
do-nothingS may be transformed into prac-
tical do-somethings. Let useless women
go to work and gather the fiocks. Come,
Zipporah. let me introduce you to Moses.
Saa in ia call of hof .n4 has
great memory. Four hundred years before
He had promised the deliverance of the op-
pressed Israelites of Egypt. The clock of
time has struck the hour, and now Moses
Is called to the work of rescue. Four hum
dred years Is a very long time. but you see
God can remember promise four hundred
years as well as you can remember fouc
hundred minutes.
No one realizes how great he ia for good
or for evil. There are branchings out and
rebounds, and reverberations, and elab-
orations Of influence that can not be esti-
mated. The fifty or one hundred years of
| our earthly stay is only small part of our
sphere. The flap of the wing of the de-
stroving angel that smote the Egyptian
oppressors, the wash of the Red Sea over
the heads OF the drowned Egyptians, were
all fulillments of promises four centuries
| old. And things occur in your life and in
| mine that We can not account for. They
| may be the echoes of what was promised
"
Oh, the prolongation ofthe divine memoryl
Notice. also that Moses was eighty years
| OF age when he got this call to become the
Israelitish deliverer. Forty years he had
lived in palaces as prince, another forty
years he had lived in the wilderness of
Arabia. Nevertheless, he undertook the
work. and IL we want to know whether he
succeeded, ask the abandoned brick-kilns
| OF Egyptian taskmasters, and the splint-
cred chariot wheels strewn on the beach Of
hal Dad kk<< ,I-aIe s,l, L.
clapped for the Israelites passed over and
the Egyptians gone under.
Still further, watch this spectacle OF
| genuine courage. No wonder when Moses
scattered the rude shepherds, he won Zip
| porah's heart. What mattered il to Moses
whether the cattle OF the seven daug hters
| OF Jethro were driven from the troughs by
the rude herdsmen? Sense Of justice fired
his courage; and the world wants more of
the spirit that will dare almost anything to
see others righted. All the time at wells
| of comfort, at wells of Joy, at wells of re-
ligion, and at wells of literature there are
| outrages practiced, the wrong herds get
ting the first water. Those vino have the
| previous right come in last, IL they come
in at all. Thank God, we have here and
| there strong man to set things right
| am so glad that when God has an especial
work tc do, He has some one ready to ac-
complish it.
Still another, see In this call OF Moses
that II God has any especial work for you
to do He will help you. There were Egypt
and Arabia and the Palestine with their
crowded population, but the man the Lord
wanted was at the southern point OF the
triangle Of Arabia, and He picks him right
out, the shepherd who kept the flock OF
| Jethro, his father-in-law the priest and
sheiK. So God will not find it hard to take
you out from the sixteen hundred millions
| OF the human race il He wants you for any
thing especial.
| o what a fascinating and inspiring char
| acter this Moses! How tame all other
stories compared with the biography OF
| Mosesi
Helmets made Of aluminium, to be
covered with waterproof cloth of various