St. Tammany farmer., 1901-07-20


help her to decide the domestic ques-
ton which was to her solicitude. A
good, strong sermon under the Di-
vine blessing would have led her into
the kingdom of God and afterward
her whole family. The children,
whether they became farmers or me-
chanics or merchants or artists or
men of learned profession or women
at the head of households, would
have done their work in a Christian
way and after lives of usefulness on
earth would have taken thrones in
Heaven. 1t would have been a whole
family saved for time and saved for
eternity. But the pastor had ad-
journed the strong and effective
discourse to clear Sunday. The
mother went home chilled in body,
mind and soul, and concluded not to
trouble herself or her household
about the future, and to let to-mor-
row take care of itself and keep on
doing as they had been doing. No
God in that home. No religious con-
ISOLATION in time of bereavement. No
formation of thorough Christian
character in the lives of those grow
ing up boys and girls. They will go
out into the world to meet its vicis-
situdes without any sublime reen-
forcement of the Gospel. What pity
it was that he did not put down the
manuscript of his well prepared SER
mon on the Bible if he preached from
notes or pour it out of his soul if he
had lodged it there through careful
preparation! No. He allowed that
opportunity, which could never re-
turn, to pass into eternity unim-
proved. He observed by the way the
rain dashed against the windows of
the parsonage and the windows of the
church that the wind was from the
east or the northeast, and he did not
SOW, or sowed that which was not
worth sowing.
In all departments of life there are
those hindered by the wind of public
opinion. It has become an aphorism
in politics and in all great movements:
"He is waiting to see which way the
wind blows" And it is no easy thing
to defy public opinion, to be run down
by newspapers, to be overhauled in So
cial circles, to be mathematical by
those who heretofore were your
friends and admirers. 1t requires a
heroism which few possess. Yet no
great reformatory or elevating move
ment has ever been accomplished un-
til some one was willing to defy what
the world should think or say or do.
But there have been men and women
of that kind. They stand all up and
down the corridors of history, exam
Piles for us to follow. Charles Sum-
ner in the United States senate, AL
exander H. Stephens in Georgia con-
vention, Savonarola stalking his life in
time Of persecution, Martin Luther
fighting the battle for religious free
dom against the mightiest anathemas
that were ever hurled, William Carey
leading the missionary movement to
save heather world while churches
denounced him as fanatic and with
attempting an impossibility; Jenner,
the hero of medicine, caricatured for
his attempt by vaccination to beat
back the worst disease that smote the
nations. They who watch the wind of
public opinion will not sow. It is an
uncertain indication and is apt to blow
the wrong way.
How many there are who give too
much time to watching the weather
vane and studying the barometer!
Make up your mind what you are 60
ing to do and then 60 ahead and do it.
There always will be hindrances. 1t is
a moral disaster if you allow prudence
to ovarmaster all the other graces.
The Bible makes more of courage and
faith and perseverance than it does of
caution. 1t is not once year that
the great ocean steamers fail to sail
at the appointed time because OF the
storm signals. Let the weather bureau
prophesy what hurricane or cyclone it
may, next Wednesday,, next Thursday,
next Saturday, the steamers will put
out from New York and Philadelphia
and Boston harbors and will reach Liv-
erpool and southampton and Glasgow
and Bremen, their arrivals as certain
as their embarka ton. They cannot af-
ford to consult the wind, nor can you
in your life voyage.
Young man, you have planned what
you are going to be and do in the
world, but you are waiting for circum-
stances to become more favorable.
You are, like the farmer in the text,
observing the wind. Better start
now. Obstacles will help. you if you
conquer them. Cut your way through.
Peter Cooper, the millionaire philan-
thropist, who will bless all succeeding
centuries with the institution he
founded, worked five years for $25 q
year and his board. Henry Wilson,
the Christian statesman who COM
manded the United States senate
with the gavel of the vice presidency,
wrote of his early days: "Want sat
by my cradle. I know what it 10 to
ask a mother for bread when she has
none to give. left my home at ten
years of age and served an appren-
ticeship of II years, receiving a
months schooling each year, and at
the end of II years Of hard work a
yoke of oxen and six sheep, which