St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1902-04-12


gathereth her chickens under he1
wing"
The fact is that the most of them
will never mind the shelter unless
while they are chickens. 1t is sim
pie matter Of memorable statistics
that most of those who do not come
to Christ in youth never come at all
What chance is there for the young
without divine protection? There
are the grogshops, there are the
gambling hells, there are the infideli'
ties and immoralities of spiritualism
there are the bad books, there are
the impurities, there are the bust
ness rascalities, and so numerous are
these assailants that it is wonder
that honesty and virtue are not lost
arts. The birds of prey, diurnal and
nocturnal, of the natural world are
ever on the alert. They are the as
sassins of the sky; they have varie-
ties Of taste. The eagle prefers the
flesh of the living animal; the vulture
prefers the carcass; the falcon kills
with one stroke, while other styles
of beak give prolongation of torture
And so the temptations of this life
are various.
But we all need the protecting
wing. If you had known when you
entered upon manhood or woman
hood what was ahead of you, would
you have dared to undertake life?
How much you have been through!
With most life has been disappoint-
ment. They tell me so. They have
not attained that which they expect
ed to attain. They have not had the
physical and mental vigor they ex-
pected or they have met with rebuffs
which they did not anticipate. You
are not at 40 or so or 60 or 70 or
80 years of age where you thought
you would be. I do not know any
one except myself to whom life has
been a happy surprise. l never eA-
pected anything, and so when any
thing came in the shape of human
favor or comfortable position or wild
ening field of work it was to me sur
prise. l was told in the theological
seminary by some of my FELLOWSHIP
dents that I never would get any
body to hear me preach unless |
changed my style, so that when l
found that some people did come to
hear me it was happy surprise.
But most people, according to their
own statement, have found life a dis
appointment Indeed, we all need
shelter from its tempests.
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
figuratively. 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 this fire
place to get warmed. The worlds ex-
tremities 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 ship sails 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 prolonged
SILVER. But when say that this is a
cold world I chiefly mean figuratively.
If you want to know what is the mean
ing 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 lux
uriance of thought and speech, but sug-
gest your necessities and see the Their
mometer drop to so degrees below zero,
and in that which till moment before
had been 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 my
self is concerned, have no word of
complaint, but I 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 another. It becomes popular
to depreciate and defame 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 hap
1o
What people want is warmth. Many
years ago man was floating down on
the ice of the Merrimac, 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 COW
cred with ice, and he cried out: ''For
Gods sake, give me the wooden end
OF the plank this time!" and, this
done, he was hauled to shore. The
trouble is that in our efforts to save
the soul there is too much GOODNESS
and icy formality, and so the imper-
lied one slips off and floats down. Give
it the other end of the plank; warmth
of sympathy, warmth of kindly asso-
citation, warmth of genial surround
ings. 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 cold day, the rain beat
ing and the atmosphere full of sleet,
the hen clucks her chickens under her
wings and the warmth of her own
breast puts warmth into the wet
feathers and the chilled feet of the in
FAINT group Of the barnyard, so Christ
says to those sick and frosted and dis
gusted and frozen Of the world:
.Come in out of the March winds of
the worlds criticism, come in out OF
the sleet of the worlds assault, come
in out of a world that does not under
stand you and does not want to under