Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1899-01-09

But do we do justice to the stay at
homes? David, who was worth TO- 900
Of those who went out to meet the
Lord S enemies in the woods of Ephra-
i'm, that day did his work in retirement.
Oh, the world needs a day OF judg-
ment, to give many of the stay at homes
proper recognition. In the different
wars the sons went to the front and on
ships de}ok or battlefield exposed their
lives and earned the admiration of the
country, but how about the mothers
md fathers who through long years
taught those sons the noble sentiments
that inspired them to go and then gave
them up when perhaps a few words Of
earnest protest would have kept them
on the farm and in the homestead? The
Gay Of final reward will reveal the self
sacrifice and the fidelity of thousands
who never in all their lives received
one word of praise. Oh, We unknown,
We faithful and Christian and all endur
ing stay at honest I have no power
now to do you justice, but I tell you of
one who has the power and Of the day
when he will put it forth. It will be
the day when the thimble. and the la
die, and the darning needle, and the
washtub, and the spinning wheel, and
the scythe, and the thrashing machine,
and the hammer, and the trowel, and
the pillow, will come to as high an ap-
probation as a "A FOUNDER, or the sword,
or the, battering ram that pounded down
the wall or the flag that was hoisted
on the scaled parapets.
A Great Soldier.
The warrior David of my text showed
more self control and moral prowess in
staying at home than he could have
shown commanding in the field. He
was a natural warrior. Martial airs
stirred him. The glitter of opposing
shields fired him. He was one of those
men who feel at home in the saddle
patting the neck of paving cavalry
horse. But he suppressed himself. He
obeyed the command of the troops whom
he would like to have commanded.
Some of the greatest Sedans and Aus
terlitzes have been in backwoods kitch-
ems or in nursery, with three children
down with scarlet fever, soon to join
the two already in the churchyard, or
amid domestic wrongs and outrages
enough to transform angels into devils,
or in commercial life within their own
panics, or in mechanical life in their
own carpenter shop or on the scaffold
ing of walls, swept by cold or smitten
by heat. No telegraphic wires reported
the crisis of the conflict, no banner was
ever waved to celebrate their victory,
but God knows, and God will remem-
! Der. and God will adjust, and by him
the falling of a tear is as certainly no.
ticed as the burning Of world, and the
flutter of a sparrow's wing as the flight
of the apocalyptic archangel.
Oh, what a God we have for small
things as we'll as big thingsl David no
more helped at the front than helped at
home. The four regiments modified
for the defense of the throne of Israel
were right in protesting against David's
exposure of his life at the front. Had
he been pierced Of an arrow or cloven
down with battleax or fatally slung
from snorting war charger, what dis
aster for the throne of Israel Absalom,
his son, was low fellow and unfit to
reign his two chief characteristics were
his handsome face and his long hair
SO long that when he had it cut that
which was scissored off weighed 1900
shekels, after the kings weight" and
when man has nothing but hand
some face and an exuberance of hair
there is not much of him. The capture
or Staying of David would have been a
calamity irreparable. Unnecessary ex-
posure would have been crime for Da-
vid, as it is crime for you.
Some people think it is bright thing
to put themselves in unnecessary peril.
They like to walk up to the edge of a
precipice and look off, defying vertigo,
or go among contagious when they can
be of no use but to demonstrate their
own bravado, or with glee drive horses
which are only harnessed whirlwinds,
or see how close they can walk in front
of trolley car without being crushed,
or spring on rail train after it has
started, Or leap off rail train before it
has stopped. Their life is a series of
narrow escapes, careless of what pre-
dicament their family would suffer at
their sudden taking off or of the mis-
fortune that might come to their bust
ness partners or the complete failure Of
their life work, if coroner's jury must
be called in to decide the style of their
exit. They do not take into considera-
tion what their life is worth to others.
Taken off through such recklessness
they go criminals. There was not one
man among those four full regiments
of 1000 IsraeIites that would have SO
much enjoyed being in the fight as Da
vid, but he saw that he could serve his
nation best by not putting on helmet
and shield and sword, and so he took
the advice of the armed men and said,
"What seemeth to you best I will do. %
%hof n
without teasing and bantering casualty
tn Saa if III can 1aunch Won into the next