The Calhoun chronicle. [volume] (Grantsville, W. Va.) 1883-1984, 1902-05-06

not anticipate. on are not at forty or
nifty 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. [
never expected anything. and so when
anything came in the shape OF human ia
Nor or comfortable position or widening
field OF work IL was to me a surprise. i
was told IN the theological seminary by
some OF my fellow students that / never
would get anybody TO hear me preach up-
less l changed my style. so that when /
found that some people did come TO hear
me 1T was happy surprise. But most
people, according to their own statement.
have found life a disappointment. In,
deed, we all need shelter from its tenn.
pests.
The wings OF my text suggest warmth.
and that rs what most folks want The
TACT Is that this is a cold world whether
you take 1t literally or hguratively We
have big fireplace called the sun. and it
has a very hot fire. and the stoSers keep
the Goals well stirred up. but much of the
year we cannot get near enough to this
fireplace 10 get warmed. THIS worlds
eXtremlties are cold all the time Forget
not that 1t 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 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 millions OF people at the north
IS a prolonged SILVER
But when l say that this is a cold
world L 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 Insurance of thought
and speech, but suggest your necessities
and see the thermometer drop TO fifty de-
grces 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 chaif before a windmill As far as
myself Is concerned. i have no word Of
complaint, but | look of day by day and
see communities freezing out men and
women OF whom the world is not worthy
Now 1t takes after one and now after an
other. 1t becomes popular to depreciate
and defame and execrate and lie about
some people This is the best world I
ever got into, but 1t 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 viii 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
viii come. The heats of the day will have
passed. There will be shadows. and we
cannot see as far. The work of lite will be
about ended. The hawks of temptation
that lowered in the sky will have gone to
the woods and folded their wings Sweet
sllences will come. The air will be redo
lent with the breath of whole arbors of
promises sweeter than jasmine or even
ing primrose. The air may be a little chill,
but Christ will call us, and we viii 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 III 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
Tor 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-
citation you cannot recall the brooding
hen and her chickens without seeing also
the barn ana the haymow and the wagon
shed and the house and the room where
you played and the f-esidc with the big
backlog before which you sat and the
nelghbors 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
and start again In. thought return to
that place and hear the cluclS 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 a hen
gathereth her chickens under her wings,
and We would not" All, that throws the
responsibility upon us. eye would not"
Alas, for the would nots" If the wan
dering broods of the farm heed not their
mothers call and risk the hawk and dare
the freshet and expose themselves to the
frost and storm. surely their calamities
are not the mothers fault eye would
mott" God would, but how many would
not?
When a good man asked a young woman
who had abandoned her home and who
was deplorlng her wretchedness why she
did not return, the reply was: Il dare
not go home. Ny father is so provoked
ne Woulu not receive me nome. linen.
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 "Im-
mediate on the outside. and inside it s
written, Gle will abundantly pardon"
Oh. We wanderers from God and happiness
and home and heaven, come under the
sheltcrinR wing. A vessel in the Bristol
Channel was nearing the rocks called the
steep Holmes Under the tempest the
vessel was pnmanageable, 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 turnedl 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 20 your soul and. i'm the
words of Boaz Ruth. I commend YOU TO
the Lord God of Israel under whose
wings thou hast come to trust"
Copyright 1899, l.. KlopschI