Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1902-03-20


everlasting welfare of our children, most
other things belonging to us are of but lit.
tie comparative Importance. Alexander
the Great allowed his soldiers to take
their families with them to war, and he
accounted for the bravery Of his men by
the fact that many of them were born in
camp and were used to warlike scenes from
the start. Would God that all the chill.
dren of our day might be born into the
army of the Lord!
But we all need the protecting wing. II
you had known when you entered upon
Of YOU, would you have dared to under
take life? How much you have been
through! With most life has been a disap.
pointment. They tell me so They have
not attained that which they expected to
attain. They have not had the physical
have met with rebutfs which they die
not anticipate. You are not at forty OF
fifty or sixty or seventy or eighty years O.
age where you thought you would be- ]
do not know any o2e except myself te
whom life has been happy surprise.
never expected anything, and so wher
anything came in the shape of human fa
vor or comfortable position or widening
field OF work it was to me surprise. ]
was told in the theological seminary by
some of my fellow students that | never
would get anybody to hear me preach un.
less i! changed my style, so that when ]
found that some people did come to heal
me it was happy surprise. But most
people, according to their own statement
have found life disappointment In.
deed, we all need shelter from its tenn.
pests.
The wings OF my text suggest warmth,
and that is what most folks want. The
fact is that this is a cold world whether
you take it literally or fguratively. We
have big fireplace called the sun, and it
has very hot fire, and the stokers keep
the Goals well stirred up, but much of the
year we cannot get near enough to this
fireplace to get warmed. This worlds
extremities are cold all the time. Forget
not that it is colder at the South Pole
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 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 manS millions of people at the north
is prolonged shiver.
But when | say that this is a cold
world l chiefly mean figuratively. 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
and speech, but suggest your necessities
and see the thermometer drop to fifty de-
grecs 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 windmill. As far as
myself Is concerned, L 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 depreciate
and de'sme and execrate and lie about
some people. This is the best world l
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 will 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
slences will come. The air will be redo.
lent with the breath of whole arbors Of
ing pi imrose. 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-
citation you cannot recall the broodins
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. SOlile VI you ldu DSttSl ~ poNN
and 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 olassed among those described by
the closing words of my text, "as hen
gathereth her chickens under her wings,
and ye would not" All, that throws the
responsibility upon us. "Ye would not"
Alas, for the would nots!" If the wan
terng brocds 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. 'Ye would
mott" God would, but how many would
not?
When good man asked young woman
who had abandoned her home and who
was deploring her wretchedness why she
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