Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1900-12-28


while the next door neighbor has seven |
children, and they are all spared. The |
unfortunates buy at time when the |
market is rising and the day after the |
market falls. At a time when they need |
to feel the best for the discharge of
some duty they are seized with physical
collapse. Trying to do good and hon
est and useful thing, they are misrep-
resented and belied as if they had
practiced villainy. These are people
who all their lives have suffered injus-
tees. Others of less talent, with less
conservation, go on and up, while they
go on and down. There are in many
esriddles that have never been solved,
mysteries that have never been ex-
planned, heartbreaks that have never
been healed. Go to that Ean or that
woman with philosophic explanation,
and you will make matters worse in
stead of making them better. But let
the oceanic tide of the text roll in that
soul, and all it's worriments and losses
and disasters will be submerged with
blessing, and the sufferer will say: Il
cannot understand the reason for my
troubles, but I will some day under
stand. And they do not come by acct
dent. God allows them to come, and
God is love.''
But for this divine feeling think
our world would long ago have been
demolished. Just think of the organ
| lied wickedness of the nations! See
the denominations continental! Behold
| the false religions that hoist Moham-
med and Buddha and Confucius! Look
at the Koran and the Shastra and the
Zend-Avesta that would crowd out of
the world the Holy Scriptures! Look
at war, digging it's trenches for the
dead across the hemispheres! See the
great cities, with their holocaust of
destroyed manhood and womanhood!
What blasphemies assail the heavens!
What butcheries sicken the centuries!
What professions of crime and atrocity
and woe encircle the globe! If justice
had spoken, it would have said: "The
world deserves humiliation, and let
humiliation come" If immutability
had spoken, it would have said: 81 have
always been opposed to wickedness and
always will be opposed to it. The world
is to me an affront infinite, and away
with it," If omniscience had spoken,
it would have said: 'sI have watched
that planet with minute and compre-
hensive inspection, and I cannot have
the offense longer continued" If truth
had spoken, it would have said: II de-
clare that they who offend the law
must go down under the law" But di-
vine love took a different view of the
worlds obduracy and pollution. It
said: II pity all those woes of the
earth. I cannot stand here and see
no assuagement of those sufferings.
will go down and reform the world.
I will medicate it's wounds. will calm
it's frenzy. I will wash off it's pollu-
ton. I will become incarnated. I will
take on my shoulders and upon my
brow and into my heart the conse-
quences of the worlds misbehavior.
start now, and between my arrival at
Bethlehem and my ascent from Olivet
I will weep their tears and suffer their
griefs and die their death. Farewell,
my throne, my crown, my scepter, my
angelic environment, my Heaven, till
1 have finished the work and come
back!" God was never conquered but
once. and that was when He was con-
quered by His own love. "God is love. -
In this day, when the creeds OF
churches are being revised, let more
emphasis be put upon the thought OF
my text. Let it appear at the beginning
of every creed and at the close. The
ancients used to tell of a great mill
tary chieftain who, about to go to bat
tie, was clad in armor, helmet on head
and sword at side, and who put out
his arms to give farewell embrace to
his child, and the child, affrighted al
his appearance, ran, shrieking, away
Then the father put off the armor that
caused the alarm, and the child saw
wr,l, ~ y
Struggled against his heart. Creed.
, must not have too much iron in thei,
make up, terrorizing rather than at
tracing. They must not hide the smit
ing face, and, the warm heart of ou1
. Father, God. Let nothing imply that
| there is sheriff at every door ready t<
us all a mercy that wants to save, an6
save now.
: If one paragraph of the creed seem.
| to take you, like a child, out of tn.
arms of father, let the next paragraph
put you in the arms of q mother. "a.
( one whom his mother comforteth, Sc
+. will I comfort you" Oh, what I
mother we have in God! And my tex
: is the lullaby song to us when we an
e ill, or when we are maltreated, or whe1
we are weary, or when we are tryins
to do better, or when we are bereft
> or when we ourselves lie down to tn,
last sleep. We feel the warm cheel
> of the mother against our cheek, ant
E there sounds in it the hush of many
1 mothers: God is lovei"
This was the reason the Bible wa
written. The world needs no inspire,
page to tell it that God will chastis
: sin, for that is proved in the life o