The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1902-03-06

have met with rebuffs which they did
not anticipate. You are not at forty or
fifty or sixty or seventy or eighty years OF
age where you thought you would be- |
do not know any one except myself to
whom life has been a happy surprise. L
never expected anything, and so when
anything came in the shape of human fa-
vor or comfortable position or widening
field of work it was to me surprise. l
was told in the theological seminary by
some of my fellow students that | never
would get anybody to hear me preach un-
less | changed my style, so that when |
found that some people did come to hear
me 1t was a happy surprise. But most
people, according to their own statement,
have found life disappointment. In
deed. we all need shelter from its TEN.
pests.
The wings OF my text suggest warmth
and that is what most folks want The
fact is that this is cold world whether
YOU take it literally or tiguratively. We
have big fireplace called the sun, and it
has a very hot fire, and the stokers keep
the Goals well stirred up, but much of the
year we cannot set near enough to this
fireplace to get warmed This worlds
extremites are cold all the time. Forget
not that it is colder at the South Pole
than at the North Pole, and that the
Arctic is not so destructive as the Antar-
tic. Once in awhile the Arctic will let
explorers come back, but the Antartic
hardly ever When at the South Pole
ship sailB in, the door of ice is almost
sure to be shut against its return. So life
to many millions of people at the south
and many millions of people at the north
is a prolonged shiver.
But when l say that this is cold
world | chiefly mean hguratively. 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
almost tropical for luxuriance of thought
and speech but suggest your necessities
and see the thermometer drop to fifty de-
grees below zero, and in that which till
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 concerned, | have no word OF
complaint, but look off day by day and
see communities 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 depreeiate
and defGme and execrate 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 happen to them will be their grave.
Thus at sundown. lovingly, safely, com.
pletely, the hen broods her young So, If
we are the Lords, the evening of our life
will come. The heats of the day will have
passed. There win be shadows, and we
cannot see as far. The work of life will be
about ended. The hawks of temptation
that lowered in the sky will have gone to
the woods and folded their wings. Sweet
silences will come. The air will be redo
l. .F ~l11A al Nf
promises sweeter than jasmine or even-
ing primrose. The air may be little chill,
but Christ will call us, and we will know
the voice and heed the call, and we will
come under the wings for the night, the
strong wings, the soft wings, the warm
wings. and without fear and in full sense
of safety, and then we will rest from sun
down to sunrise, as a hen gathereth her
chickens under her wing"
My text has its strongest application
for people who were born in the country,
wherever you may now live, and that is
the majority of you. You cannot hear
my text without having all the rustic
scenes of the old farmhouse come back to
you. Good old days they were. You
knew nothing much of the world, for you
had not seen the world. BY law of asso
ciation You cannot recall the brooding
hen and her chickens without seeing also
the barn and the haymow and the wagon
shed and the house and the room where
you played and the fireside with the big
backlog before which you sat and the
neighbors and the burial and the wedding
and the deep snowbanks, and hear the vii
lage bell that called you to worship and
seeing the horses which, after pulling you
to church, stood around the old clapboard-
ed meeting house, and those who sat at
either end of the church pew and, indeed,
all the scenes of your first fourteen years,
and you think of what You were then and
of what you are now and all these thoughts
are aroused by the sight Of the old hen
coop Some of you had better go back
aud start again. In thought return to
that place and hear the cluck and see the
outspread feathers and come under the
wing and make the Lord your portion
and shelter and warmth, preparing for
everything that may come, and so avoid
being classed among those described by
the closing words OF my text, 'as hen
gathereth her chickens under her wings,
and We would not" All, that throws the
responsibility upon us. 'Ye would not"
Alas, for the would nots!" If the wan
dering broods OF the farm heed not their
mothers call aud risk the hawk and dare
the freshet and expose themselves to the
frost and storm, surely their ealamities
are not the mothers fault Eye would
mott" God would, but how many would
not?
When good man asked a young woman
who had abandoned her home and who
was deploring her wretchedness why she
did not return, the reply was: 81 dare
not go home. My father is so provoked
he would not receive me home Then,
said the Christian man, 81 will test this"
And so he wrote to the father, and the re-
ply came back, and in a letter marked out
side Immediate and inside saying, Let
her come at once; all is forgiven" So
Gods invitation for you is marked I'm
mediate" on the outside, and inside it is
written, "He will abundantly pardon"
Oh, We wanderers from God and happiness
and home and heaven, come under the
sheltering wing. A vessel in the Bristol
Channel was nearing the rocks called the
Steep Holmes. Under the tempest the
vessel was unmanageable, and the only
hope was that the tide would change be-
fore she struck the rocks and went down,
and so the captain stood on the deck,
watch in hand. Captain and crew and
passengers were pallid with terror. TAX
ing another look at his watch and another
look at the sea, he shouted Thank God
we are saved The tide has turned One
minute more and we would have struck
the rocks!" Some OF you have been a long
while drifting in the tempest of sin and
sorrow and have been making for the
breakers. Thank God, the tide has turned
Do you not feel the lift OF the billow?
The grace of God that bringeth salvation
has appeared to your soul, and, in the
words of Boaz Ruth, l commend you to
ffba ned Dod nf Taraol ,,ndoc ,,.ho.o