Connecticut western news., 1902-03-06

HGElS
 WASHINGTON, March "A familiar illustration from the barnyard Is em- ployed In this discourse by Dr. Tal- mage to show the comfort and protec- ton that heaven affords to all trusting souls. The text is Matthew xxiii, 37, Even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not"
 Jerusalem was In sight as Christ came to the crest of Mount Ohvet. height of TOO feet. The splendors of the religious capital of the whole earth irradiated the landscape. There Is the temple. Yonder Is the kings palace. Spread out before his eyes are the pomp, the wealth, the wickedness and the coming destruction of Jerusalem, and he bursts into tears at the thought of the obduracy of place that he would gladly have saved and apostro- phizes, saying, 70 Jerusalem, Jeru- salem, how often would I have gath cred thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would notr'
 Why did Christ select hen and chick ems as simile? Next to the opposite ness of the comparison, I think it was to help all public teachers in the mat ter of illustration to get down of their stilts and use comparisons that all can understand. The plainest bird on earth is the barnyard fowl. Its only adorn- ments are the red comb In its head dress and the wattles under the throat. It has no grandeur of genealogy. All we know is that it's ancestors came from India, some of them from height of 4,OOO feet on the sides of the Himalayas. It has no pretension of nest like the eagles eyrie. 1t has no luster of plumage like the goldinch. Possessing anatomy that allows flight, yet about the last thing 1t wants to do is to fly. and in retreat uses foot al- most as much as wing. Musicians have written out in musical scale the song of lark and robin redbreast and night ingale, yet the hen of my text hath nothing that could be taken for song. but only cluck and cackle. Yet Christ in the text uttered while looking upon doomed Jerusalem declares that what he had wished for that city was like what the hen does for her chickens.
 Christ's Simple Teachings.
 Christ was thus simple in his teach ings, and yet how hard 1t Is for us who are Sunday school instructors and ed itors and preachers and reformers and those who would gain the ears of audi ences to attain that heavenly and di- vine art of simplicityI We have to run a course of literary disorders as chil- dren a course of physical disorders. We come out of school and college loaded down with Greek mythologies and out of the theological seminary weighed down with what the learned fathers said, and we fly with wings of eagles and famingoes and albatrosses, and 1t takes a good while before we can come down to Christ's similitudes, the candle under the bushel. the salt that has lost its savor, the net thrown into the sea, the spittle on theN eyes of the blind man and the hen and chick ems.
 There Is not much poetry about this winged creature of God mentioned in my text, but she Is more practical and more motherly and more suggestive of good things than many that fly higher and wear brighter colors. She Is not a prima donna of the skies nor Il strut of beauty in the aisle of the forest. She does not cut a circle under the sun like the Rocky mountain eagle, but stays at home to look after family affairs She does not swoop like the condor of the cordilleras to transport a rabbit from the valley to the top of the crags, but just scratches for living.
 am in warm sympathy with the un- pretentious old fashioned hen because, like most of us, she has to scratch for a living. She knows at the start the lesson which most people of good sense are slow to learn-that the gaining of a livelihood implies work and that sue cesses do not lie on the surface, but are to be upturned by positive and contin- uous effort. The reason that society and the church and the world are so full of failures, so full of loafers, so full of deadbeats Is because people are not wise enough to take the lesson which any hen would teach them that If they would find for themselves and for those dependent upon them any thing worth having they much scratch for it. Solomon said, "Go to the ant, thou sluggard." I say. Go to the hen. thou sluggard. In the Old Testament God compares himself to an eagle stir ring up her nest, and in the New Testa- ment the Holy Spirit Is compared to a descending dove, but Christ in ser mon that began with cutting sarcasm for hypocrites and ends with the parox. ysm of pathos in the text compares himself to a hen.
 Hawks of Tenn mptation.
 One day in the country we saw sud den consternation in the behavior of old Dominick. Why the hen should be 50 disturbed we could not understand We looked about to see if a neighbor's S dog were invading the farm. We look ed up to see if stormcloud were hoy. ertng. We could see nothing on the ground that could terrorize, and we could see nothing in the air to ruff1e the feathers of the hen, but the loud, wild, affrighted chuck which brought all her brood at full run under her feathers made us look again around and above us when we say that high up and far away there was a rapacious bird wheeling round and round and down and down. and. not seeing us as we stood In the shadow, 1t came nearer and lower until we saw Its beak was curved from base to tip and it had two flames of fire for eyes and 1t was hawk. But all the chickens were un- der old Dominick's wings, and either the bird of prey caught a glimpse of us or, not able to find the brood hud- died under wing. darted back into the clouds. So Christ calls with great ear nestness to all the young. Why, what Is the matter2 It Is bright sunlight and there can be no danger. Health is A ,Yon6 hnpoo Ia thairo pIoptv