Connecticut western news., 1902-05-15

sinful friends immediately leave hill. The bright winged humming birds have | little use for the rosebush when the | flowers are gone. This younger son be gan to be in want. He became helpless | and friendless. To earn food enough to sustain life he tended a herd of swine. This social condition was the worst to which a Jew could ever sink. He was ! flat upon his back in the lowest pit of I despair.
 An aristocratic lady living in London | had a very disSipated son. A friend
 said: "Why not take your son to hear Rowland Hill preach? Perhaps Ee can save him." The mother answered,
 "I will.' Next Sunday night she sat | in MT. Hills audience to listen to the | greatest preacher of his day. Row | iand Hill arose. gave out text and be- | gan a sermon upon the prodigal son in this way: The other day I saw a l farmer coaXing some swine to q slaughter house. The farmer had a
 bag of corn in his hand. Every few steps the man would drop a few | grains. The swine would run after
 him and greedily devour them. Poor ! fools, said I, those swine do not know l the farmer is leading them into q slaughter house. where they are to be | killed" After the benediction this | aristocratic lady turned to her son and | said: Was not that illustration about | the swine awful? Think of a minis ters using such a figure in the Chris | tian pulpit" Mother" answered the | young man, q do not know whether
 MT. Hill had right to use that illus | tration or not in church. I do know | what MT. Hill meant. He meant that I was the prodigal son being led by | Satan into the far country of sin, l where 1 would be destroyed as swine are killed by the butchers knife in slaughter house."
 Under the Shadow of the Cross. The far country is never so far away | but that the penitent prodigal can find
 his way back from 1t to the heavenly homestead. When the younger son be- came so poor that he had no decent clothes for his back, so friendless that | not one of his old companions would | speak to him, when he would feign have filled his belly with the husks l that the swine did eat, then he thought of his fathers past love. Surely" said he, father will give me enough to eat. He will care for me as much as he ! would for one of his hired servants, even though have done wrong" But | the good father was ready to do more
 than that. No sooner did the younger
 son come within sight of the old home
 stead than the father ran to meet him. X He fell on his sons neck and kissed 1 him. He kissed him in the same man.
 ner the Divine Father is ready to greet I every one of his wayward children. He gave loving kiss of eternal pardon. He kissed him, as God will kiss us if and stand under the shadow of the | atoning cross.
 One moonlight night at Asbury Park
 a party of young people were gathered on the beach. As the waves came roll
 ing up the sands the conversation drag
 ged. Then young girl with voice as ] sweet as a birds began to sing. Her many friends joined in and made a
 large chorus. After awhile this young
 girl started the tender home melody of
 Robert Laurie:
 Oh, could see you now, my boy, As fair as in olden time,
 When prattle and smile made homo . joy
 And life was a merry chime! When the last notes of this song died l away, an old man came toward the group and said to the young people: ,o1o l,oA i,,o My wife and I have a wayward boy. We do not know where he is tonight. He ran away from home. We do want him to come back before we die. |" God, the Divine Father, is waiting. He is waiting for some of his way ward children to come tonight to the gospel fireside.
 A Message For Boys. Boy, sitting before me tonight, have a message for you. I see the ! marks of dissipation upon your brow. l see that you have been crying dur l ing this sermon. 1 fear you are the younger son of my text. AS I catch one of your falling tears I would like l to describe vision which came to me | last winter about you. Where was the scene? No, it was not in Chicago; not | in that low saloon or cheap theater or | in that hall where you spent last | night playing billiards and gambling | away your soul. The scene was way | back in the country. You remember the old farm, the white house, the pill | Jared porch, the big barn in the rear, the woodpile to the left of the kitchen ! hone
 clamoring for food because the earth | was a frozen tomb. The worms had
 gone to sleep for their winter nap.
 It was about evening. An old gray | haired woman was cooking over the kitchen stove. She looked thinner than | when you saw her last. The neighbors say she is aging very rapidly and will
 not live long.
 | Just then an old man came in. He
 stamped the snow off his great boots. | This gray haired woman looked up and
 said: 'Pa. have you brought letter? |? l Have you been to the postOffice? Is it 1 not strange he has not written. He has been gone now five long years. Do you l think God will let me live long enough to see him just once before goP The | old man said nothing. He went to the
 door and looked down the road. He
 shaded his eyes as though he could
 'see a great way off" Then he said:
 Mother, that is fine calf we have
 there in the barnyard. She is getting
 fatter each day. We must kill her soon. | Perhaps we can have big feast when
 our boy comes home" They sat by the
 fire little while after the dishes were
 wiped. The old folks were too tired to
 stay up late. They were too tired to
 sleep.
 They took down the old Bible. The
 mother said: "Pa, won't you read that
 story of the prodigal son? Somehow
 never can hear 1t enough. You read it
 last night. It is in the fifteenth chapter
 of Luke. Read about the younger son