St. Tammany farmer., 1901-07-20
Many of us who are now preachers


of the Gospel or medical practitioners
or members of the bar or merchants
or citizens in various kinds of busi-
ness had very poor opportunity at
the start because we had it too easy
far too easy. We never appreci-
ated what it is to get an education
because our fathers or older brothers
paid the schooling, and we did not get
the muscle which nothing but hard
work can develop. I congratulate
you, young man, if to you life is q
struggle. 1t is out of such circum-
stances God makes heroes, if they
are willing to be made. Cut your
way through. If it were proper to do
so and you should stand in any board
Of bank directors, in any board of
trade, in any legislature, state or ma
tional, and ask all who were brought
up in luxury and ease to lift their
hand, here and there a hand might
be lifted. But ask those who had an
awful hard time at the start to lift
their hands, and most of the hands
would be lifted. The heroes of church
and state were not brought up on
confectionery and cake.
But my subject takes another step.
Through medical science and dentistry
that has improved the worlds masti-
cation and stronger defense against
climatic changes and better under
standing of the laws of health human
life has been greatly prolonged. But
a centenarian is still wonder. How
many people do you know hundred
years old? I do not know one. We
talk of century as though it were
a very long reach of time. But what
is one century on earth compared
with centuries that we are to live
somewhere, somehow-ten centuries,
a million centuries, quintillion OF
centuries? We are all determined to
get ready for the longer life we are
to live after our exit from things SUBJ
lunary. We are waiting for more pro-
pitious opportunity. We have too
much business to attend to now or too
much pleasure to allow anything to
interfere with it's brilliant progress.
We are waiting until the wind blows
in the right direction. We are going
to SOW, and SOW the very best grain,
and we are going to raise an eternal
harvest of happiness. We like what
you say about Heaven, and we are go.
ing there, and at the right time we
will get ready. But my lungs are
sound, my digestion is good, the exam
lining physician of the life insurance
company says my heart beats just the
right number of times minute, and l
am cautious about sitting in draft.
and I observe all the laws of hygiene.
and nv father and mother lived to be
very old, and I come of a long-lived
family. So we adjourn and postpone
until, like the farmer suggested by
my text, we allow the seedtime to
pass, and sudden pneumonia or reck-
less bicycle or an ungoverned automo-
bile puts us out of life with all its mag
nifcent opportunities of deciding
Alright the question Of everlasting res
Mence. A Spanish proverb says: "The
road of By and By leads to the town OF
Never"
Whether in your life it is a south
wind or an east wind that is now
blowing, do you not feel like saying:
''This whole subject I now decide.
Lord God, through Thy Son Jesus
Christ, my Saviour, 1 am Thine for
ever. I throw myself, reckless OF
everything else, into the fathomless
ocean of Thy mercy"
"But," says someone in frivolous
and rollicking way, II am not like the
farmer you find in your text. do
not watch the wind. What do care
about the weather vane? I am SOW
ing now." What are you sowing,
my brother? Are you sowing evil
habits? Are you sowing infidel and
atheistic beliefs? Are you sowing
hatreds, revenges, discontents, un-
clean thoughts or unclean actions?
If so, you will raise big crop-a
very big crop. The farmer sometimes
plants things that do not come up,
and he has to plant them over again.
But those evil things that you have
planted will take root and come up in
harvest of disappointment, in harvest
of pain, in harvest of despair, in har-
vest of fire. Go right through some
of the the unhappy homes of Wash
ington and New York and all the
cities and through the hospitals and
penitentiaries, and you will find
stacked up, piled together, the
sheaves of such an awful harvest.
Hosea, one of the first of all the writ
ing prophets, although four of the
other prophets are put before him
in the canon of Scripture, wrote an
astounding metaphor that may be
quoted as descriptive of those who do
evil: "They have sown the wind,
and they shall reap the whilwind." :"
Someone has said: Children may be
strangled, but deeds never"
There are other persons who truth.
fully say: II am doing the best I
can. The clouds are thick and the
wind blows the wrong way, but I am
sowing prayers and sowing kind
nesses and sowing helpfulness and
sowing hopes of a better world" J"
Good for you, my brother, my sister!
What you plant will come up. What
you sow will rise into harvest the
wealth of which you will not know