The Iola register., 1902-05-02

AS l grow older l am the more dis
posed to judge the spiritual condition
of truly religious church member
by the way he treats those who have
gone astray. He is more apt to oon-
denim himself than he is to accuse
his unfortunate brother. When n
Sunday school pupil goes astray, the
truly good Sunday school teacher
says: "Ahi that is too badl l won
der il i did my full duty? Perhaps,
If I only had called on the lad and
invited him to my home and had seen
where he spent his evenings, this aw-
full sin would not have happened. !
must not be too hard upon the lad.
Yes, / too, am to blame"
When a minister goes astray, the
truly good elder does not upbraid
him. All, mol He knows too much
about the weakness of human nature
to do that. The old member of ses-
sion will sit by the fire, with tears
streaming down his furrowed cheeks,
reproaching himself when he says:
Here ] have been q professed fol-
lower of the Lord for 40 years. /
ought to have looked after the young
man; l ought to have been his guide
the coward and denied his connection
with Christ, the Saviour did not call
meeting of the apostles for a her
esy trial and make Peter demit the
ministry. BY His treatment of Pc
ter's sinful act Christ taught the les
son of forgiveness and mercy for
the penitent wrongdoer. lie reor-
dained Peter to go forth and feed His
lambs. Bear We one another's bur-
dens and so fulfill the law of Christ"
is especially an appropriate lesson
for Christians to learn who take no
interest in the welfare of fellow
Christians who are the members of
the household of faith.
IT isn't the thing you do. friend,
It's the thing you leave undone
Which gives you bit OF heartache
AT the setting of the sun.
The tender word forgotten,
The letter you didn't write,
The flower you might have sent, friend,
Are your haunting ghosts at night
But my text clearly means also
that every one should try in manful,
womanly, Christian fashion to bear
his own burdens. We are very apt
to think that our. own troubles are
heavier to bear than any other per-
sons troubles. But if we were al
lowed, as in the old legend, to go to
the plain of afiliction and deposit
compelled instead to take up the sor-
rows of some one else, in all prob
ability we would carry away from
the mountain of difficulty the burden
pack which our backs have been ac-
customed to carry. Now, we cannot
help our brother to bear his burdens
by trying to pile upon his stalwart
shoulders our own burdens in addi-
ton.
No man ever becomes q healthy
man, mentally or spiritually, who is
mendicant by choice, crawling
from door to door, begging and whin-
ing. Yet there are some burdens that
are absolutely impossible for us to
bear in our own strength. Some of
us have had so much trouble-such
an awful. awful lot of trouble! We
have suffered again and again. We
have had TO go to the family plot, as
i went two weeks ago, and to leave
there loved one. The grave did
look so big, and the black hole was
dug so deep. But there is way we
can all carry our own burdens. That
way is TO cast them upon the Lord,
and He will sustain us. He has prom
| ised, and He will do il. If we will
only cast our burdens upon Him, our
own hands will be free. Then we
can go forth like athletes stripped
for the fray. We can go forth to help
our brothers and sisters, our par
ents and children and all our friends,
carry their burdens.
Let us return TO the good old coun.
try times when every one helped every
other person in the community. In
those good old times every one was
ready to halve friends sorrows as
well as double a friends joys. When
the wedding bells began to ring the
young girls, the friends of the bride
used to come from the, village, and
decorate the church altar with the
wild flowers which they had picked
Friends would sew the wedding gar.
ments, friends would serve the we'd
ding sake; friends would help the
young people furnish the new home;
friends would bear the burdens, the
happy burdens of joy. Then, when
trouble came, the same friends would
come in and help the invalid; they
would pour out the medicine; they
would close the eyelids in the last
sleep; they would sit up all night long
with the dead; they would sew the
shroud and carry the casket and dig
the grave. The same friends would
throw into the grave the sods which
would fall upon the coffin lid. The
same friends would raise the head
stone. Friends, the same friends who
once plucked the orange blossoms,
would plant the cypress.
Let us be to each other friends OF
' n