The Yale expositor., 1898-02-18

OF Mamre, will help every woman to
provide hospitality, however rare and
embarrassing. 1t is high time that
some of the attention we have been
giving to the remarkable women of the
Bible-remarkable for their virtue, or
their want of It, or remarkable for
their deeds-Deborah and JeZebel, and
Herodias and Alfalfa, and Dorcas and
the Marys, excellent and abandoned
II is high time some of the attention
we have been giving to these conspicu-
Gus women of the Bible be given to
Julia, an ordinary woman. amid or
binary circumstances, attending to or
binary duties, and meeting ordinary
responsibilities.
Now, what is wanted Is grace-di-
vine grace for ordinary business men,
men who are harnessed from morn till
night and all the days of their life
harnessed in business. Not grace 20
lose hundred thousand, but grace to
lose ten dollars. Not grace to super
wise two hundred and fifty employees in
a factory, but grace to supervise the
bookkeeper and two statesmen, and the
small boy that sweeps out the store.
Grace to invest not the eighty thou
sand dollars of net profit, but the twen-
ty-five hundred of clear gain. Grace
not to endure the loss of a whole ship
load of spices from the Indies, but
grace to endure the loss of paper OF
collars from the leakage of a displaced
shingle on a poor roof. Grace not to
endure the hardness of the American
Congress in passing a necessary law,
but grace to endure the hardness OF
an errand boy stopping to play marbles
when he ought TO deliver the goods.
Such a grace as thousands of business
men have today-keeping them tran
quill, 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 or a
dead failure-calm in all circumstances
and amid all vicissitudes. That is the
kind OF grace we want.
Millions of men want it, and
they may have 1t for the ask
ing. Some hero or heroine
comes to town. and as the pro-
cession passes through the streets the
business men come out, stand on tip
toe on their store steps and look at
some one who in Arctic cline, or in
ocean storm. or in day of battle, or in
hospital agonies. did the brave thing,
not realizing that they. the enthusiast
tic spectators. have gone through trials
in business life that are just as great
before God. There are men who have
gone through freezing Arctics and
burning torrids, and awful Marengoes
of experience without moving five
miles from their doorstep.
Now, what ordinary business men
need Is to realize that they have the
friendship Of that Christ who looked
after the religious interests of Matthew,
the custom house clerk, and helped Ly-
dia, OF Thyatira, to sell the dry goods,
and who opened bakery and fish mar
ket in the wilderness Of Asia Minor to
feed the seven thousand who had come
out on a religious picnic, and who
counts the hairs on your head with az
much particularly as though they were
the plumes of a coronation, and who
took the trouble to stoop down with
his finger writing on the ground, al
though the first shuttle of feet oblter-
ated the divine caligraphy, and who
knows just how many locusts there
were in the Egyptian plague, and
knew just how many ravens were nee
essary to supply Elijah's pantry by the
brook Cherith. and who, as floral COM
mander, leads forth all the regiments
Of primroses, foxgloves, daffodiis, hya-
cinths, and lilies, which pitch their
tents of beauty and kindle their camp
! fires of color all around the hemisphere
that that Christ and that God knows
the most minute affairs OF your bust
ness life and however inconsiderable
understanding all the affairs of that
store as we'll as all the affairs of a
Rothschild and Barring.
Then there are all the ordinary farm
ers. We talk about agricultural life,
and we Immediately shoot off to talk
about Cincinnatus, the patrician, who
went from the pillow to high position,
and after he got through the dictator
ship, in twenty-one days. went back
again to the pillow. What encourage
ment is that to ordinary farmers? The
vast majority of them-none of them
will be patricians. Perhaps none OF
them will be senator's. If any of them
have relationships, ii will be over for
ty, or fifty, or one hundred acres OF
the old homestead. What these men
want is grace, to keep their patience
while blowing with balky oxen. and to
keep cheerful amid the drouth that de-
stroys the corn crop, and that enables
them to restore the garden the day aft
er the neighbours 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 VI
and die.
| Grace In catching weather that an.