The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-12-14

place now all empty Of worldly ad-
mirers. / viii tell you her name If you
would like to know 1t. Paul baptized
her and gave her the right name. She
Is not brilliant but strong. There Is a
deep quiethood in her manner ana a
frmness in her tread. and in her hand
Is a scroll revealing her mission. She
comes om heaven. b vas born in
the throneroom- OF the king. This Is
Patience. "Ye have nee of patience"
Many of the nations of theearth have
put their admiration Of this virtue into
proverb or epigram- One OF o east
ern proverbs says. With time and pa
tience the mulberry leaf becomes satin."
A Spanish proverb says. If / have lost
the rings. here are the fingers. still.
The Italian proverb says. The world
is his who has patience" The Engish
proyerb declares. When n ooi
shuts, another opens" Ali these pro-
verbs only put in another Way Paufs
terseneSs when he says. "Ye AVE neeo
Of patience"
First, patience with the faults of
others. No one keeps j Ten Com
mandments equally well. -, temper
ament decides which commandments
he shall come nearest to keeping. II
We break some of the command
ments ourselves. why be so hard oh
those who break others of the ten?
YOU anu i u dSdilSt one verse OIL the
twentieth chapter Of Exodus, why
should we so severely excoriate those
who run against another verse of the
same chapter? Until we are perfect
ourselves We ought to be lenisnt with
our neighbor's imperfectionS. Yet it Is
often the case that the man most vul-
uerable Is the most hypercrItical. Per
haps he is profane. and yet has no toll
erance for theft, when profanity is
xynrSa than thaff for uhiJo tho Iaffpr
is robbery Of a man. the former is rob-
berry of God. Perhaps ne is given to
defamation and detraction, and yet
feels himself better than some one who
is guilty of manslaughter. not realizing
that the assassination of s
the worst kind Of assassination. The
LAYER for washing in the ancient taber-
nacle was ait its side FURNISHED like d
looking glass, so that those that ap-
preached that faver might see their
need of washing. and If by the gospeI
looking glass we discovered u own
need of moral cleansing we would be
more economic of denunciation. The
most of those who go wrong are the
victims of circumstances. and if you
and I had been rocked in the SAME
Ubiquitous cradle and been all our lives
surrounded by the same baleful infiu-
ences we would probably have done
just as badly. perhaps worse. In most
cases you a better pity more and
scold less. Here is a mar down in the
ditch of misdoing. A self righteous
soul comes along and looks down at
him says: There is a man down
in the ditch. He had no business to fail
into it. He is suffering h conse-
quenceS of his own NO
one but himself is to blame" And the
hard hearted man passes on.
WARM HEARTED CHRISTIANS.
But here comes a warm hearted, SYM
pathetic, Christian man. He says:
There is a man down in the ditch. L
must get him out. God help me to get
him out" And standing there on the
edge of the ditch the good man solilo-
quizes and says to himself, IF / had
as bad a father and mother as ne
had and all the surroundings OF my
life had been as d~epraying as those thar
have cursed him l myself would PROB
ably have been down in the ditch. and
if that man had been blessed with as
good a father and mother as I have and
he had been by the
kindly influences which have encom-
passed all my days he would probably
have been standing here looking down
at me in the ditch Then the good
man puts his knee to the side of the
ditch and bends over and says to the
fallen one, Brother, give me your
hand,' and with n stout grip lifts
him up to God and eaven There are
wounds of the world that need the
probe and the sharp knife n severe
surgery, but the most of the wounds
want an. application of ointment or
salve, and we ought to AVE three or
-four boxes of that gospel nsedicament
in our pocket as we go out into the
world. We all need to carry more of
the balm of. Gilead" and less cauStic,
more benediction and less anathema.
When I find a professed Christian man
harsh and mercileSs in his estimates
Of others. l silently wonder if he has
not been misusing trust funds or beat
ing his wife. There is something awful
the matter with him.
We also have need of patience with
slow results of Christian work. We
want to see our attempts to do good
Immediately successful. The world is
improving, but improving at so DELHI
crate a rate. Why not more rapidity
and momentum? Other wheels turn
so swiftly, why not the gospel chariot
take speed electric? I do not know. I
only know that it is Gods way. We
whose cradle and grave are SO near to-
gether have to hurry up, but God, who
manages this world and the universe,
is from everlasting to everlasting. He
takes 500 years to do that which he
could do in five minutes. His clock
strikes once in a thousand years. While
God took only a week to fit up the world
for human residence, geology reveals
that the foundations of the world were
cons in being laid, and God watched
the glaciers n the fire and the earth
quakeS and the as through
centuries and millenniums they were
shaping this world, before that last
week that put on the arborescence. A
few days ago my friend was talking
with a geologist. AS they stood near
a pile of rocks my friend said to the
scientist, II suppose these rocks were
hundreds of thousands of years in con-
struction?" And the ~geologist replied,
Yes. and 10 n knows but the Lord,
and hC won tell" If it took so long
to make this world at the start, be not
surprised If ii takes a long while to
make it owe again now that it has
been ruined. The Architect has prom
Used to reconstruct it, and the plans
are all made, and at just the right
time it will be SO complete that it will
be fit for cav to move in, if, ac-
cording to the belief of some of my
friandS thiS WORLD iS~fn no made tho