The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1901-02-15

You could count them up on the fingers
Of your two hands ever il by accident or
war you had lost one OR two of the I'm
gers. As to the realm of personal at
Effectiveness, how many women radiant
Of countenance and graceful Of form do
you know who are unaffected and natural
Of manner and deeply pious before. God,
using their beauty for the betterment Of
the world and not for selfish purposes?
/ only take the risk Of asking the qucs-
ton and leave to you the risk of answer
ing it. These things I say to show you
that in order to have the promise of the
text fulfilled in your case it is not neces-
Fary you have phenomenal worldly sue
cess.
Notice also that God gives the right
eous the power to extract good out of
evil and by a divine chemistry TO change
the bitter into the sweet, and the harmful
into the beneficial. The promise that it
shall be well with you does not imply
that you are to be free from trouble.
There is no escape from that. We all
have family relations, and some of them
will be making exit from this world, so
that bereavement is the universal inherit
ance. So also is financial loss. The diff
ference between the ~prospered and those
not prospered is the difference in the
amount they can afford to lose. The
more wealth a man has the more he can
lose, but one man can afford to lose a mil
lion dollars where another man cannot
afford to lose one dollar. On larger or
smaller scale all suffer financial loss.
Amid the rapidity of the revolutions OF
the wheel of national and international
finance monetary perplexity is as com
mon as day or night.
So also misinterpretation n Islander
come to all who live active lives. Our
actions, thoroughly honest and above
board, may come under suspicion. Every
courtroom at every term of court hears
illustrations of the delusion of what is
called circumstantial evidence. Innocent
men are fined or imprisoned or electro
cuted because of an unfortunate conjunc-
ton of events What is true in court
rooms is true in all circles of domestic or
social or political or official life. You
have been misunderstood and misrepre-
sented or will be misunderstood or mis-
represented. Then how can my text be
true? My explanation is this: The man
without any divine grace in his heart
finds in these troubles irritation and I'M
belief and melancholia and despair. A
Christian man n d in them submission
and enlarged views and divine support
and reconsecration. Bereavement to the
wording brings hard thoughts of God
and a resistance so violent it dares not
fully express itself. Bereavement brings
TO the Christian the thought of heavenly
reunion and 4 more complete laying hold
of God, and 4 more tender appreciation
Of the divine presence, and deeper graft
tude that We were permitted to have the
departed one so long, and a more lively
sympathy for the sorrows of others and
another evidence of Gods love, for
whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth."
Misery of Loving Too Much.
Financial loss, which l just now said is
sure to come, never breaks up a man
who has strong faith in God. In most
cases it is a loss of surplus or it is the
Punishment of luxuries. Most of the
wants OF the prosperous classes are arti-
fetal wants. The late Mr.. Armour of the
$6O,O0O,GO0 estate pointed to one of his
clerks on ordinary salary and said, THAT
man has better appetite than |, sleeps
better nights and enjoys life more than |
do" oh, the gigantic miseries of those
who have too muchi \ man in Solomon's
time expressed as philosophic and rea-
sonable a wish as any man of those times
or of our times. His name was Agur,
and he offered a prayer that he might
never have q superaburdance or q deficit,
crying out, Give me neither poverty nor
riches" On the one side he had seen the
awful struggle of the poor to get food
and clothes and shelter and to educate
their children, and on the other side he
had seen the equity foot, and the indiges-
ton, and the insomnia, n the anxiety
about large investments, and the threat
ened paresis often characteristic of those
who are loaded up and loaded dow with
too many successes. Those people who
are generally called the masses-that is,
the most of folks-haye tie things abso-
lutely necessary for their well being. They
have no Murillos on their wall, nor a Bel
shazzar's Feast" in their dining room, nor
a pair of $1,000 sorrels at their doorway.
But they have something which those
supe%rabundantly supplied seldom have.
They nave better health because, being
compelled to walk, they get the necessary
exercise, and, their diet being limited to
plain food, they do not suffer from mid
night salads and are not victimized by
rare caterers. They retire for whole
some sleep at the very hour in which
others are leaving their homes for the
dance or the card party They will sleep
the last sleep just as well in the plain
4 STdNtN dEu d. lHOSC "AO haNe v IN
an arch of sculptured granite in costliest
metropolis or most historical abbey.
Things are more equally divided than
is generally supposed. That splendid
home is apt to nave a taking off of some
kind. 1t may be an invalid wife, or a de-
formed child. or an inherited tending to-
ward insanity, or a dissolute son, or a de
spoiled reputation, or a weakened heart
that may halt under the least excitement.
Envy no man. Envy no woman. Be
content with such things as ye have. Do
not think. in order to nave it we'll with
you according to my text, that there
fore you must have more than somebody
else, or even as much as somebody else.
The Lord treats US all better than we
treat him, and if we would study our
blessings as much as we study our disas-
tiers we would be more reasonable and
thankful. In Isaiah God says that bread
and water shall be sure. and none of us
has been put on SO low a diet, but we
often act as though God had not kept his
L - $1,000 -,:-