Connecticut western news., 1899-01-12

IS no tr1Rnt1ul CrlSlS. HIS tram Ol he- publican and Democratic institutions IS a through train, and all we want is to have the engineer and the brakemen and the conductor attend to their busi- ness and the passengers keep their places. We want men ill this nation with faith enough for all. We want here and there David worth 10, 900 men.
 Confidence Lacking.
 A vast majority of men have no sur plus of confidence for others and hardly enough confidence for themselves. They go through life saying depressing things and doing depressing things. They chill prayer meetings, discourage charitable institutions, injure commerce and kill churches. They blow out lights when they ought to be kindling them. They hover around dull fire on their own hearth and take up so much room that no one can catch the least calorio, in stead of stirring the hearth into blaze, the crackle of whose backlog would in- yite the whole neigh hborhood to come in to feel the abounding warmth and see the transfguration of the faces. As we all have to guess great deal about the future, let us guess something good, for it will be more encouraging, and the guess will be just as apt to come true. What lot of ingrates the Lord has at his table! People who have had three meals day for 50 years and yet fear that they will soon have to rattle their knife and fork on an empty dinner plate. How many have had-winter and spring and summer and fall-cloth- ing for 60 years, but expect an empty wardrobe shortly! How many have lived under free institutions all their days, but fear that the United States may be telesooped in some foreign col Iision Oh. hut the taxes have gone upl Yes, but thank God, it is easier with money to pay the taxes now that they are up than it was without money to pay the taxes when they were down. We want few men who have faith in God and that mighty future which holds several things. among them a millennium. Columbanus said to his friend, "Deicolus, why are you always smiling?" The reply was, Because no one can take my God from mel" We want more men to feel that they have a mission to cheer others and to draw up the corners of peoples mouths which have long while been drawn down, more Davids who can shepherd whole fiocks of bright hopes, and can play a harp of encouragement, and strike down Goliath of despair, and of whom we can say, "Thou art worth 10, 900 of us ["
 I admit that this thought of my text fully carried out would change many of the worlds statistics. Suppose viii lage is said to have 1000 inhabitants, and that one.half of them-namely 500-have for years been becoming less in body, and through niggardliness and grumbling less in soul. Each one of these is only one-half of what he once was or one-half of what she once was That original 500 have been reduced one-h half in moral quality and are really only 250. Suppose that the other 800 have maintained their original status and are neither better nor worse. Then the entire population of that village is 750. But suppose another village of 1000, and 500 of them, as the years go by, through mental and spiritual oul. ture, augment themselves until they are really twice the men and women they originally were, and the other 800 remain unchanged and are neither better nor worse, then the population of that village is 1,500. Meanness is subtrac- tion and nobility is addition. Accord ing as you rise in the scale of holiness and generosity and conseoration, you are worth 5 or 10 or 50 or 100 or l, ,000 or 10, 900 others.
 Humble Heroes.
 Notice, my friend, that this David, warrior, strategist, minstrel, master of blank verse and stone singer at the giant, whom the soldiers of the text es timated clear up into the thousandfold If usefulness on this particular occasion, staid at home or in his place of tenn porary residence. General Joab, Gen. eral Abishai and General Ittai, who commanded the boys in the right wing and left wing and center, did their work bravely and left 25, 900 of the Lords enemies dead on the field, and many of the survivors got entangled in the woods of Ephraim and mixed up in the bushes and stumbled over the stumps of trees and fell into bogs and were devoured of wild beasts which seized them in the thickets. But David did his work at home. We all huzza for heroes who have been in battle and on their return what processions we form and what triumphal arches we spring and what banquets we spread and what garlands we wreathe and what orations we deliver and what belts we ring and what cannonades we fire! But do we do justice to the stay at homes? David, who was worth 10000 of those who went out to meet the Lords 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 deck or battlefield exposed their AANCo anu GhO OL buc country, but how about the mothers and fathers who through long years taught those sons the noble sentiments that inspired them to go and then gave them up when perhaps few words of earnest protest would have kept them on the farm and in the homestead2 The day 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, ye unknown, ye faithful and Christian and all endur- ing stay at homes! I have no power now to do you justice, but 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 dle, and the alarming needle, and the washtub, and the spinning wheel, and the scythe, and the thrashing machine, and the hammer, and the trowel, and She blow, will come to as high an ap- -t-A T l.