The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1899-01-04
are you tending and how fast are you
getting on toward it?

are You tending and how fast are you
getting on toward it?
The Fusrowed Brow.
Again, I remark that there are many
who estimate their life on earth by
their sorrows and misfortunes. Through
a great many Of your lives the plow-
share hath gone very deep, turning up
a terrible furrow. You have been be-
trayed, and misrepresented, and set up
on, and slapped of impertinence, and
pounded of misfortune. The brightest
life must have its shadows and the
smootbest path its thorns. On the hap
piest brood the hawk pounces. No
escape from trouble Of some kind.
While glorious John Milton was losing
his eyesight he heard that Salmasius was
glad of it. While Sheridan's comedy
was being enacted in Drury Lane thea
ter, London, his enemy sat growing at
it n-the stage box. While Bishop Coop
er was surrounded by the favor OF
learned men his wife took his lexicon
manuscript, the result Of a long life OF
anxiety and toll, and threw it into the
fire. Misfortune. trial, vexatiou for al
most every one! Pope. %applauded OF all
the world, has a stoop in the shoulder
that annoys him SO much that be has a
tunnel dug, so that he may 60 hnob-
served from garden to grotto and from
grotto to garden. Cano, the famous
Spanish artist, is disguised with the
crucifx that the priest holds before him
because it is such a poor specimen OF
sculpture, and so, sometimes through
taste, and sometimes through learned
menace, and sometimes through phys
ical distresses-aye in $1,000 ways
troubles come to harass and annoy.
And yet it is unfair to measure a
mans life by his misfcrtunes, because
where there is one stalk Of nightsbade
there are so marigolds and h%arebells;
where there is one cloud thunder
charged there are hundreds that stray
across the heavens, the glory OF land
and sky, asleep in their bosom. Because
death came and took your child away
cid you Immediately forget all the five
years, or the ten years, or the 10 years
in which she came every night for q
kiss, all the tones of your heart pealing
forth at the sound of her voice or the
soft touch of her hand? Because in some
financial Euroclydon your fortune went
into the breakers did you forget all
those years in which the ~luxuries and
extravagances Of life showered on your
pathway? Alas. that is an unwise man,
an uugrateful man, an unfair man, an
unphilosophic man, and, most OF all,
an un-Christian man, who measures his
life On earth by groars and tears n
dyspeptic fit and abuse and scorn and
terror and neuralgia thrust!
Again, l remark that there are many
people who estimate their life on earth
by the amount of money they have ac-
cumulated. They say, 1.-The year 1866
or 1870 or 1898 was wasted" Why!
"Made no money" Now, it is all cant
and insincerity to talk against money,
as though it had no value. 1t may rep
resent refinement and education and ten
thousand blessed surroundings. 1t is
the spreading of the table that feeds the
children's hunger. 1t is the spreading
of the table that feeds the children's
hunger. 1t is the lighting Of the fur
mace that keeps you warm. 1t is the
making of the bed on which you rest
from care and anxiety. 1t is the carry
ing of you out at last to decent s%epulcher.
and the putting up of the slab on which
is chiseled the story of your Christian
hope. 1t is simply hypocrisy, this
TRADE in pulpit and lecture hall against
money.
The Curse of Money.
But while all this is so, he who uses
money or thinks of money as anything
but a means to an end, will find out his
mistake when the glittering treasures
slip out of bis nerveless grasp, and he
goes out of this world without a shilling
of money or a certificate of stock. He
might better have been the Christian
porter that opened his gate or the be-
grimed workman who last night heaved
the coal into his cellar. Bonds and
mortgages and leases have their use,
but they make a poor ya1dstick with
which to measure life. "They that
boast themselves in their wealth and
trus; in the multitude Of their riches,
none of them can, by any means, re-
deem his brother or give to God a ran
som for him that be should not see cor
r%uption.'
But | remark, there are many
wish there were more-who estimate
their life by their moral and spiritual
development.
1t is not sinful egotism for a Chris
tian man to say: II am purer than /
used to be. | am more consecrated to
CHRIST than | used to be, | have got
over a great many of the bad habits in
which | used to indulge. l am a great
deal better mai than | used to be-.
There is DO sinful egotism in that. 1t
is not base egctism for a soldier to say,
Il frow more about military tactics
that l used TO before l took a musket in
my hasd and learned to present arms
and when l was a pest to the drill Off
GER" 1t is not base egotism for a sailor
to say, IL know better how to clew
down the mizzen topsail than | used to
before | had ever seen a ship" And
: there is NO sinful egotism when Chris
Ftian man. fighting the battles of the
Lord, or if you will have it, voyaging
toward a haven Of eternal rest, says, 81
know more about spiritual tactics and
about voyasing toward heaven than
used to-"
Why, there are those in this presence
who have measured lances with many q
fee and endorsed it! There are Christian
mea here. who have become swart:ly ~
ha,nmering at the forge Of calamity.
They stand on al entirely different
plane of character from that which they
once occupied. They are measuring
their life en- earth by golden gated Sab
baths, by p]entecostal prayer meeting,
by communion tables, BY baptlsr1al
~ -, b~.llcl1iahS in the tpmJle.