The age-herald., 1901-12-29

on earth peace good will to men!' An, yes, the fields were honored!
 The old shepherds with plaid and crook have for the most part vanished. but we have on our United States pasture fields and prairie about 42,000O0O sheep, and all their keepers ought to follow the shep- herds of my text, and all those who toll in fields, all vine dressers, all orchard ists, all husbandmen. Not only that Christmas night, but all up and down the worlds history. God has been hon bring the fields. Nearly all the messiahs of reform and literature and eloquence and law and benevolence have come from the fields. Washington from the fields Jefferson from .--e fields. The presidential martyrs, Garfield and Lin coin and Mckinley, from the fields. Henry Clay from the fields, Martin Lu- ther from the fields. Before this world is right the overfowing populations of our crowded cities will have to take to the fields. Instead of ten merchants in rivalry as to who shall sell that one ap- pie we want at least eight of them to go out and raise apples Instead of ten merchants desiring to sell that one bush el of wheat, we want at least eight of them to go out and raise wheat. The world wants now more hard hands, more bronzed cheeks, more muscular arms. To the fields. God honored them when he woke up the shepherds by the midnight anthem, and he will. while the world lasts, continue to honor the fields. When the shepherds crook was that famous night stood against the wall of the Bethlehem khan, it was a prophecy of the time when thrasher's fail and farm CTS blow and woodman's axe and oX's yoke and sheaf binders rake shall sur render to the God who made the coun- try, as man made the town.
 Motherhood Conseorated.
 Behold also that on that Christmas night God honored motherhood. Two angels on their wings might have brought an infant Saviour to Bethle- hem without Mary's being there at all. When the villagers on the morning Of Dec. 26 awoke, by divine arrangement and in some unexplained way the child Jesus might have been found in some comfortable cradle of the village. But no, no! Motherhood for all times was to be consecrated, and one of the ten derest relations was to be the maternal relation and one of the sweetest words. mother" In all ages God has honored good motherhood. John Wesley had a good mother; St. Bernard had Q good mother; Samuel Bubgett, a good moth- CT; Doddridge, a good mother Walter Scott a good mother, Benjamin West, a SOOu mother. III great duuleuSe' most of whom were Christians, 1 asked that all those who had been blessed of Christian mothers arise, and almost the entire assembly stood up. Do you not see how important it Is that all motherhood be consecrated? Why did Titan, the Ita- lian artist, when he sketched the Ma donna make if an Italian face? Why did Rubens, the German artist in his Ma donna make it German face? Why ID tl,1 4-l let in his Madonna make it an English face? Why did NTurillo, the Spanish ar tist, in his Madonna make it Span ish face? I never heard, but l think they took their own mothers as the type of Mary, the mother of Christ When you hear some one in sermon or oration speak in the abstract of a good, faithful, honest mother, your eyes fill up with tears while you say to yourself, That was my mother"
 Waiting at the Throne.
 The first word a child utters is apt to be mother" and the old man in his dying dream calls: 9Mother! Mother!" It matters not whether she was brought up in the surroundings of city and in affluent home and was dressed ap- propriately with relerence to the de- mands of modern life or whether she wore the old time cap and great, round spectacles and apron. of her own make and knit your socks with her own nee dies seated by the broad fireplace, with great backlog ablaze, on a winter night. It matters not how many wrinkles cross ed and recrossed her face how much her shoulders stopped with the burdens of long life. If you painted a Madonna hers would be the face. What a gentle hand she had when we were sick and what voice to soothe pain, and was there any one who could so fill up a room with peace and purity and light? And what a sad day that was when we came home and she could greet us not, for her lips were forever still Come back, mother, in these Christmas times and take your old place and, as ten or twenty or fifty years agocome and open the old Bible as you used to; read and kneel in the same place where you used