Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1898-03-02

John to unroll an Apocalypse. nou VIII
! not be a Paul to preside over an apostolic
college. You will not be a Mary to mother
/ Christ. You will more probably be Asyn-
critus, or Phlegon, or Hermas, of Patrobas,
( or Hermes. or Philologus, or Julia.
| Many of you are women at the head of
households Every morning you plan for
the day. The culinary department of the
household is your dominion. You decide
all questions of diet. All the sanitary
regulations of your house are under your
superyision To regulate the food, and
! the apparel and the habits, and decide the
thousand questions of home life is a tax
upon brain and nerve and general health
absolutely appalling if there be no divine
alleviation.
decide the health of the world. You have
only to go on some errand amid the tav-
. erns and hotels of the United States and
Great Britain to appreciate the fact that a
vast multitude of the human race are
slaughtered by Incompetent cookery.
Though young woman may have taken
lessons in music and may have taken les
sons in painting, and lessons in astronomy,
she is not well educated unless she has
taken lessons in doughi They who decide
the apparel of the world, and the food of
the world, decide the endurance of the
world.
Then there are all the ordinary business
men. They need divine and Christian help.
we shoot right off and talk about men who
did business on large scale and who sold
millions of dollars of goods Il year; and the
vast majority of business men do not sell
million dollars of goods, nor half million,
nor quarter of a million, nor the eighth
part of million. Put all the business men
of our cities, towns, villages and neighbor-
hoods side by side, and you will find that
they sell less than hundred thousand dol
lars worth of goods. All these men in or
. life divine hAlp Won
see how the wrinkles are printing on the
countenance the story of worriment and
care. You can not tell how old business
man is by looking at him. Gray hairs at
thirty.
Now, what is wanted is grace-diyine
grace for ordinary business men, men who
are harnessed from morn till night and all
the days of their life-harnessed in busi-
ness. Not grace to lose hundred thou
sand, but grace to lose ten dollars. Not
grace to supervise two hundred and fifty
employees IN a factory but grace to super
wise the be okkeeper and two salesmen and
the small boy that sweeps out the store.
Grace to invest not the eighty thousand
dollars of net profit, but the twenty-five
hundred of clear gain. Such grace
thousands of business men have to-day
keeping them tranquil, whether goods sell
or do not sell, whether customers pay or
do not pay, whether tariff is up or tariff is
down. whether the crops are luXuriant OF
dead failure-calm in all circumstances,
and amid all vicissitudes. That is the
kind of grace we want.
Then there are all the ordinary farmers.
We talk about agricultural life, and we i'm
mediately shoot of to talk about Cincin-
natus, the patrician, who went from tine
plow to high position, and after he got
through the dictatorship, in twenty-one
days. went back again to the plow. What
encouragement is that to ordinary farm
ers? The vast maj ority of them--nOne OF
them will be patricians. Perhaps noe -
them will be Senators. If any oi them have
relationships it will be over forty or fifty
or q hundred acres of the old homestead.
What these men want Is grace, to keep
their patience while plowing with baiky
oxen, and to keep cheerful amid the
drouth that destroys the corn crop, and
that enables them to restore the garden
the day after the neighbOr's cattle have
broken in and trampled out the strawberry
bed, and gone through the Lima-bean
patch, and eaten up the sweet corn in such
large quantities that they must be kept
from the water lest they swell up and die.
Grace in catching weather that enables
them without imprecation, to spread out
the hay the third time, although again,
and again. and again, It has been almost
ready for the NOW. A grace to doctor the
COW with hollow horn, and the sheep with
the foot rot, and the horse with the dis
temper and to compel the unwilling acres
to yield a livelihood for the family, and
schooling for the children and little extras
to help the older boy in business, and some
thing for the daughters wedding outfit
and little surplus for the time when the
| ankles will get stiff with age, and the
breath will be little short, and the
swinging of the cradle through the hot har
vest field will bring on the old mans YER
tigo. Better close up about Cinciunatus.
know five hundred farmers just rs noble
as he was. What they want is to know
that they have the friendship of that Christ
who often drew His Smiles from the far
mer's life, as when He said: "A sower
went forth to SOW as when He built His
best parable out of the scene OF a farmer
boy coming back from his wanderings, and
the old farmhouse shook that night with
rural jubilee; and who compared himself
to q lamb in the pasture field, and who
said that the eternal God is a farmer, de-
claring: ''My Father is the husbandma +"
ECome, now, let us have religion for
ordinary people in professions, in occupa-
tions, in agriculture, in the household, in
merchandise, in everything. l salute
across the centuries Asyncritus, Phlegon
Hermas, Patribas, Hermes, PhiloloSus and
Julia.
First of all, if you feel that you are or
binary, thank God that you are not extra
ordinary. L am tired and sick, aud bored
almost to death with extraordinary peO-
pie. You know as well as l do, my brother
and sister, that the most OF the useful
work of the world is done by unPreten-
tious people who toll right On-by people
who do not get much approval, and NO one
} seems to say, THAT is well done"
The weather of life is not so severe on the
plain as it is on the high peaks. The world
never forgives a man who knows or gains
or does more than it can know or an or
do. If, therefore, you feel that yov ora
ordinary, thank God for the defense- snd
tranquility of your position.
Then remember, if you have only what
is called an ordinary home that the great
deliverers of the world have all come from
such n home. And there may be seated
| reading at your evening stand, child who
shall be potent for the ages. Just unroll
the scroll of men mighty in church and
st lte, and you will find they nearly al
came from log cabin or poor homes.
Genius almost always runs out il the third
or fourth generation. You can not find in
all history an instance where the fourth
generation of extraordinary people amount
to anything.
Let US all be content with such things as
we have. God is just as good in what He
keeps away from us rs in what He gives US.
Even knot may be useful if it is at th'