The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1902-03-12

children only a little while. What
ION do for them as children you must
10 Quickly Or never do at all. Why
have YOU never written a book?:" said
some one to a talented woman. She
replied: I am writing two and
have been engaged on one work ten
years and on the other FIVE yearS-my
TWO children. They are my life work"
When the house of John Wesley's
father burned and they got the eight
children out, John Wesley the last be-
fore the roof fell in, the father said:
Let us kneel down and thank GOO.
The children are all saved. Let the
rest of the place go" Ny hearers, II
we secure the present and everlasting
welfare of our children. most other
things belonging to US are or DuG llU-
tie comparative Importance. Alexan-
der the Great allowed his soldiers to
take their families with them to war,
and he accounted for the bravery Of
his men by the act that many OF them
were born in camp and were used to
warlike scenes from the start. Would
God that all the children Of our day
might be born into the army Of the
Lord.
The wings Of my text suggest
warmth, and that is what most folks
want. The fact is that this is a cold
world whether you take it literally or
fguratively. We have big fireplace
called the sun, and it has very hot
FIRE, and the stokerS keep the Goals
we'll stirred up, but much Of the year
we cannot get near enough to his FIRE
place to get warmed. The worlds
eytremities are cold all the time. For
get not that it is colder at the south
pole than at the north pole and that
the arctic is not so destructive as the
antarctic. Once in awhile the arctic
will let explorers come back, but the
antarctic hardly ever. When at the
south pole a ship sails in, the door OF
ice is almost sure to be shut against
it's return. So life to many millions
of people at the south and many mil
lions Of people at the north is a pro-
longed shiver. But when say that
this is cold world I chiefly mean
fguratiyely. If you want to know
what is the meaning Of the ordinary
term Of receiving the cold shoulder" ,"
get out of money and try to borrow.
The conversation may have been a.
most tropical for luxuriance OF thought
and speech, but suggest your necessl-
ties and see the thermometer drop 80
degrees below zero, and in that which
till a moment before had been a warm
room. Take what is an unpopular
position on some public question and
see your friends fly as chaff before a
windmill. AS far as myself is con-
cerned, I have no word Of complaint,
but I look off day by day and see COM
munities freezing out men and women
Of whom the world is not worthy. Now
it takes after one and now after an
other. 1t becomes popular to depre-
ciate and defame and eyecrate and lie
about some people. This is the best
world ever got into, but it is the
meanest world that some people ever
got into The worst thing that ever
happened to them was their cradle,
and the best thing that will ever hap
pen to them will be their grave.
What people want iswarrnth. Many
years ago a man was floating down on
the ice Of the Merrimae, and great ef-
forts were made to rescue him. Twice
he got hold Of a plank thrown to him
and twice he slipped away from it, be-
cause that end Of the plank was cover
ed with ice, and he cried out, For
Gods sake, give me the wooden end OF
the plank this time." and, this done,
be was hauled to shore. The trouble
is that in our efforts to save the soul
there are too much coldneSS and icy
formality, and so the imperiled one
slips off and floats down. Give it the
other end Of the plank; warmth OF
sympathy, warmth Of kindly associa-
tion, warmth Of genial surroundings.
The world declines to give it and in
many cases has no power to. give it,
and here is where Christ comes in, and
as on a cold day, the rain beating and
the atmosphere full Of sleet, the hen
clucks her chickens under her wing,
and the warmth CT her own breast
puts warmth into the wet feathers and
the chilled feet Of the infant group OF
the barnyard, so Christ says to those
sick and frosted and disgusted and
frozen of the world: Come in out Of
the March winds Of the worlds crit
icism, come in out Of the sleet Of the
worlds assault, come in out Of world
that does not understand you and
does not want to understand you. I
will comfort, and I will soothe, and I
will be your warmth, as hen gath
ereth her chickens under her wing"
On, the warm heart Of God is ready
for all those to whom the world has
given the cold shoulder.
But notice that some one must take
the storm for the chickens. All, the
hen takes the storm. I have watched
her under the pelting rain. I have seen
her in the pinching froStS. Almost
frozen to death or almost strangled in
the waters, and what fight she makes
for the young under wing if a dog or
a hawk OF a man come too near. And
so the brooding Christ takes the storm
for US. What food Of anguish and
tears that did not dash upon his holy
soul? What break of torture did not
pierce his vitals? What barking Ger
berus Of he'll was not let out upon him
from the kennels? Yes, the hen takes
the storm for the chickens, and Christ
takes the storm for US. Once the tenn
pest rose so suddenly the hen could not
get with her young back from the new
ground to the barn, and there she is
under the fence half dead. And now
the rain turns to snow, and it is an