Connecticut western news., 1901-01-03

made laughing stock. Racks and prisons and whips and shipwrecks and axes of beheadment did their worst. yet the heroes were more than conquer DTS. With such things you will illus trate that word courage" and they will go out from your presence to start anew and right. challenging all earth and hell to the combat.
 Help the Fallen.
 That word courage" fitly spoken with compressed lips and stout grip of the hand and an intelligent flash of the cye-well, the finest apples that ever dumped on the ground in an autumnal orchard and were placed in the most beautiful basket of silver network be- fore keen appetites could not be more attractive.
 Furthermore, a comforting word fitly spoken is beautiful thing. No one but God could give the inventory of sick beds and bereft homes and broken hearts. We ought not to let a day pass without visit, or a letter, or mes sage, or a prayer consolatory. You could call five minutes on your way to the factory: you could leave half hour earlier in the afternoon and fill a mission of solace; you could brighten Il sickroorn with one chrysanthemum; :; you could put postscript to a letter that would bring the joys of heaven to Il soul; you could send your carriage and give an afternoon airing to an in- valid on neighboring street; you could loan a book with some chapters most adapted to some particular misfortune. Go home today and make out a list of things you can do that will show sym pathetic thoughtfulness for the hardly bestead. How many dark places you might illumine! How many tears you could stop or, if already started, you could wipe away! How much like Je- sus Christ you might get to be! So sympathetic was he with beggary, so helpful was he for the fallen and so stirred was he at the sight of dropsy, epilepsy, paralysis and ophthalmia that, whether he saw 1t by the road side, or at the sea beach, or at the min eral baths of Bethesda, he offered re. lief. Cultivate genuine sympathy, Christlike sympathy. You cannot suc cessfully dramatize it. False sympa- thy Alexander Pope sketches in two lines:
 Before her face her handkerchief she spread
 To hide the flood of tears she did not shed.
 There are four or five words which fitly spoken might soothe and enamel pate and rescue. Go to those from whose homes Christ has taken to him. self loved one and try the word Ire union," not under wintry sky, but In everlasting springtide; not a land where they can be struck with disease, but where the inhabitant never says, "I am sick" not q reunion that can be followed by separation, but in a place from which they shall go no more out forever" For emancipation and sigh ing immortal health. Reunion or if you like the word better anticipation. There is nothing left for them in this world. Try them with heaven. With a chapter from the great book open one of the 12 gates. Give them one note of seraphic harp, one flash from the sea of glass, one chatter of the hoofs of the horses on which victors ride That word reunion or anticipation titly spoken We'll, no fruit heaped up in silver baskets could equal It. Of the 1000 kinds of apples that have blessed the world not one Is so mellow or so rich or so aromatic, but we take the suggestion of the text and com pare that word of comfort fitly spoken to apples of gold in baskets of silver.
 Sound the Alarm.
 So also is word of warning. A ship may sail out of harbor when the sea has not so much as ripple, but what a foolhardy ship company would they be that made no provision for high winds and wrathful seas. However smoothly the voyage of life may begin we will get rough weather before we harbor on the other side, and we need ever and anon to save some one utter Ing in most decided tones the word "Rewarer' There are all the tempta- tions to make this life everything and to forget that an inch of ground is lar ger as compared with our eternal exist
 
 the wine cup and the demijohn as this or any other century has heard of. There are all the temptations of pride and avarice and base indulgence and ungovernable temper. There is no word we all need oftener to hear than the word beware"
 The trouble Is that the warning word is apt to come too late. We allow our friends to be overcome in a fight with some evil habit before we sound an alarm. After man Is all on fire with evil habit your word of warning will have no more effect than would an ad- dress to a house on fire asking 1t to stop burning. no more use than steam tug going out to help ship after 1t has sunk to the bottom of the ocean. What use in word of warning to that inebri- ate whose wife was dying from wounds inflicted by his own hand. AS he held the hand of his dying wife he made this vow, Mary, I will never take another glass of strong drink until I take 1t from this hand which I now hold." In an awful way he kept the hOh, lOl W utH lHe Nlle WdS III upT COL fin he filled glass with brandy, put the glass into the dead hand, then took the glass out of her hand and drank the liquid. Too late does any warning come to such a one. But many a man now high up in usefulness and honor was stopped on the wrong road by a kindly hand put upon the shoulder and a word titly spoken. An, yes, fitly spo- ken-that is, at the right time, with the right accentuation, with the right em- phasis. A dictatorial way, condem- natory manner, fault finding tone of voice, a manner which seems to say, Look at me and do as do," will only make matters worse. From such a re- proval the inebriate will go out to take drink sooner than he would have taken 1t and the dissolute man a worse plunge into sin. The word of warning must be charged and surcharged with sympathy. You will practically say to the man, Il suppose you got into your present habit through overwork, and