The Newtown bee., 1902-05-23
Foster, Besse & Company,
 o56 and o5S Main St, Bridgeport

the house with which to light to- morrow mornings fire. He couldn't sleep for fear the match should not be a 'sgood" one. At last he got up and scratched the match-to test it. It proved to be a "good" match, and blazed all right. But he had no kindling wood ready to be lighted by it, and in the morning it was only burned stick, and he had to walk a mile through the snow to borrow an other match. His one match was all he needed if he had only believed it and gone to sleep. How many people burn out the matches of their joys in life by untrustfully and grudgingly worrying lest the good God who gives them to us should take them away again. Such spirit, in fact, defeats Gods intention in giving them, and he may as well take them away. They are not accomplishing His purpose in , bestowing them. They are not making us either happier or better. But, on the other hand, the thankful enjoy ment of Gods mercies is one kind of pay for them-is sort of religion in itself; while the opposite spirit is a practical ungodliness of the meanest sort!
 But the second exhortation of our text is the one we most need to en- phasize at this hour, viz., "In the day of diversity consider.'' Adversity, disappointment, calamity, wisely and rightly accepted, and endured, are Gods messengers of noblest discipline to human character. Our great Shakespeare has beautifully said:
 Sweet are the uses of diversity,
 Which, like a toad, ugly and venomous, Holds yet a precious jewel in his head" As You Like It, Act II. Scene 1, IT IS OUR PART TO so ENDURE ADvER- as that we may find that jewel and possess ourselves of it, in the refining and ennobling of character which we may gain by the use we should make of our trials God says to His people in Isa. AS: 10, "Behold I have refined thee, but not as silver; have chosen thee in the furnace of aftliction." Surely an ''ugly and venomous toad'' of Adversity has crossed the path ot New Milford, and we have been ''chosen in the furnace of affliction''- fiery furnace indeed. But if we can find the ''precious jewel" in this toad $ head, and receive the physical and
 moral refinement" intended by this furnace of affliction," we shall be all the richer for the trial.
 We ought to find both temporal and moral lessons in this baptism of adver- sity, and so let us consider"
 I. THE TEMPORAL LESSONS OF THIS CALAMITOUs EVENT.
 These lessons are of both public and private nature, and refer to plain, matter-of-fact worldly affairs of great l interest to us all. Let us note few of them.
 l. THE NEED OF A BOROUGH OR SOME OTHER FORM OF MUNICIPAL GOVERN MENT FOR THIS COMMUNITY.
 When l came to this place, little over year ago, I was surprised to learn that there was no municipal or ganization here, whatever, not even an incorporated village. Here was, in fact, little city, with its paved streets and sidewalks, it's brick blocks of stones and shops of all sorts, it's busy factories, it's gas and electric lights it's five good churches, now six, some of them fiji for Fifth avenue, it's half dozen hotels, two banks, fine schools and seminaries, public halls, libraries, a shopping street where everything necessary for life or luxury could be found in two-minutes' walk, and scores of handsome homes of wealth and culture. There was more retail trade, more general business, and more accumulated wealth here than in many western "city" I have seen. have been informed that the industry of tobacco packing alone, in this town, and most of it in this vil- lage, does a business of between three or four millian dollars year. And yet the only form of local government here was that of the smallest hill township in the state, the ordinary