Connecticut western news., 1900-09-20

virtues. Some people are barren of vir- tues; no weeds verify, but no flowers. must not be too much enraged at a nettle along the fence If 1t be In field containing 40 acres of ripe Michigan wheat. Some time ago naturalists told us there was on the sun a spot 10000 miles long, but from the brightness and warmth concluded 1t was a good deal of sun still. The sun can afford to have very large spot upon it, though 1t be 10000 miles long, and l am very apologetic for those men who have great faults while at the same time they have magnificent virtues.
 Gods Providence.
 Again, when 1 read in my text that the Lord slaves with the hired razor of Assyria the land of Judaa I think my self of the precision of Gods provi- dence. A razor swung the tenth part of an inch out of the right line means either failure or laceratlon, but Gods dealings never slip, and they do not miss by the thousandth part of an inch the right direction. People talk as though things In this world were at loose ends. Cholera sweeps across Marseilles and Madrid and Palermo, and we watch anxiously. VIII the cpl demic sweep Europe and America? People say: ''That will entirely depend on whether the inoculation Is a sue cessful experiment; that will depend entirely on quarantine regulations; that will depend on the early or late ap- pearance of frost; that epidemic is pitched into the world, and it goes blundering across the continents, and 1t Is all guesswork and all appalling perhaps" l think perhaps that God had something to do with 1t and that his mercy may have in some way pro- tected us, that he may have done as much for us as the quarantine and the health officers. 1t was right and ne cessity that all caution should be used, but there have come enough macaroni from Italy and enough grapes from the south of France and enough rags from tatterdemalions and hidden in these articles of transportation enough chol eraic germs to have left by this time all the cities mourning in the cemeteries. thank all the doctors and quaran- tines. but more than all and first of all and last of all and all the time thank God. In all the 5000 years of the worlds existence there has not one thing merely happened so." God Is not an anarchist. but a King, Father. When little Tad, the son of President Lincoln, died, all America sympathized with the sorrow In the White House. He used to rush into the room where the cabinet was In session and while the most eminent men of the land were discussing the questions of na- tional existence. But the child had no care about those questions. Now, God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Ghost are in perpetual session worlds Shall you, his child. rush in to criticise or arraign or condemn the di- vine government? No. The cabinet of the eternal three can govern and will govern in the wisest and best way, and there never will be a mistake and. like razor skillfully swung, shall cut that which ought to be avoided. Precision l to the very hairbreadth. Earthly time pieces may get out of order and strike wrong, saying it is l o'clock when 1t Is l or when it Is 8. Gods clock Is al | ways right. and when 1t Is 1 1t strikes 1, and when 1t Is 12 it strikes 12. and the second hand Is as accurate as the minute hand.
 The Lords Hired Raxors.
 Further, my text tells us that God Issometimes slaves nations: "In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired" With one sharp | sweep he went across Judaa, and down went its pride and its power. In 1861 | God shaved the American nation. We | had allowed to grow Sabbath desecra ton and oppression and blasphemy and fraud and impurity and all sorts of tur l pitude. The south had it's sins and the | north It's sins and the east its sins and | the west its sins. We had been warned | again and again. and we did not heed | At length the sword of war cut from the St. Lawrence to the gulf and from | Atlantic seaboard to Pacific seaboard The pride of the land, not the COW. ards. but the heroes. on both sides went down. And that which we took for the sword of war was the Lords ' the land; In 1868 again; in 1864 again. Then the sharp instrument was incased
 and piIt away.
 Never in the history of the ages was
 any land more thoroughly shaved than during those four years of civil combat
 and. my brethren. if we do not quit
 some of our individual and national
 sins the Lord will again take us in
 hand. He has other razors within
 reach besides war. Epidemics. droughts
 deluges, plasues-grasshoppe and To-
 cust-or our overtowering success may
 so far excite the jealousy of other
 lands that under some pretext the
 great nations may combine to put us
 down. Our nation, so easily approach
 ed on north and south and from both
 oceans, might have on hand at once
 more hostilities than were ever array
 ed against any one power. l hope no
 such combination against us shall ever
 be formed but want to show that as
 Assyria was the hired razor against Ju-
 dRa and Cyrus the hired razor against
 Babylon and the Huns the hired razor
 against the Goths there are now many
 razors that the Lord could hire If be
 cause of our national sins he should un.
 dertake to shave us. In 1870 Germany
 was the razor with which the Lord
 shaved France. Japan was the razor
 with which he shaved China and Amer
 lea the razor with which he shaved ar
 rogant, oppressive and Bible hating
 Spain. But nations are to repent In a
 day. May speedy and worldwide
 coming to God hinder on both sides the
 sea all national calamity. But do not
 let us as nation either by unrighteous
 aw at Washington or bad lives among
 ourselves defy the Almighty.
 Divine C1emency.
 l. One would think that our national
 ,ymbol of the eagle might sometimes
 suggest another eagle, that which an. | Tn Ia faIo oy