Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1903-05-21
ms accounts for the surprises so often

moral, are accidentally pushed into places
OF responsibility and in that way have a
latent possibilities into active powers of eff.
feet. It has often been to me matter OF
amazement the heavy load that .person,
with seemingly no draft power, will pull
when once he has been caught and har.
messed and properly driven, and probably
no one so much surprised as the man him
SELF. The difficulty is not in finding men
that are competent to do what IS needed,
but in getting men to do enough to become
themselves persuaded that they are compe'
tent.
Just as there are people that are so in
the habit of thinking they are sick that
they never get well. and nothing less than
fright or an earthquake will conyuse
them into convalescence, so society and the
church end the State are full of competent
incapables who are good for nothing simply
because they have never commenced to
imagine that they are good for almost any
thing, and have never been 80 c'Tcum-
,tanced or have never so had responsibility
rolled upon them as to shake them out OF
their incapacity. Moses is a case in point,
who, M to the time he was eighty, never
did anything noteworthy, so far as we can
learn. except to Kill an Egyptian--tunda-
mentally the same man. of coarse, that he
was during the browning, distinguishing
period of his life. but not having happened
during his first four score years to be so
circumstance or to be so plufked by
the pull of events as to discover that he
was not a nonentty and when summoned
to action BY Jehovah, pleading, off. as so
many like him have done since, by alleging
himself to be consttutional'y unequal to
the task that was set him. II YOU ask q
man to do something who thinks himself
incompetent and he says no. YOU have
to take his "No." The advantage the Lord
has is that lie does not have to- take a
mans "No," did not take Moses No"
hut chung to him. stood him up and put the
load on him and told him to go along with
it. and Just the weight Of the load made
him able to go along with it. pressure found
the limp muscles that had been waiting for
almost a century to be crushed into eXer'
ton. and circumstances not made INN
great, bat gave him a chance to be what
he and millions of other people are IN con-
dition 10 he when the chance comes, when
the assassin's bullet strikes, when at the
onportune moment shove is given int
the Pool of Bethesda.
No matter what person ls in native
ncutencss or in inward moral and Christian
beauty. we give him credit for only so
much as has eyternalzed itself and as has
wrought itself into kind of encompassing
halo and we base estimate on the square
contents of the halo. You have many
TINE seen locomotive looming out OF the
darkness with its flashing headlight. and
that light has appeared to you so brilliant
in the dense night it has seemed to you al
most As though the front OF the engine
were frescocd with section OF the sun
and the ground for a hundred rods IN adj
vance Of the train whitcncd with almost
tho brllIancv of daytime, BIT if you have
had an opportunity to INSPECT. that head
light and to narrow all this illumination
down to its fountain source YOU nave very
likely discovered there small glass lamp
furnished with wick and little kerosene
oil. This is not to find fault with the light,
but only to call attention to the TACT,
which ypu arc likely to forget that III es-
tmatinC il you rcckoncd in the reflector
that WAS framed to encompass the hight
and winch made You suppose there was a
great deal more lumnouSncsS than was act
va.ly tire ease. That Is the way in when
Cur estimates generally are arrived at
original light with the clrcumlacenl reiiec'
toy added in-centraI fame Plus the au'
rco,e.
Nov the Lord in His estimates dis
non.eS with anreole-which is what Scrip
ture means when it says that He iookcth
no. On the outward appearance. lie Is
never mis,el by refectors or hy the an
scnce Of lcncctors. 4 man may have very
little virtue and vet put that virtue into
some snowy achievement with large SUI
pcrtioial area. whcreupon men get ont
their mrH surfing rods. figure up the area,
consult the multiplication table and DECIDE
Chat he has great deal of virtue: That -
what mean ly computjrg on basis OF
aurco'e. adding reflector to the little kero'
scnc lamp. On the other hard, person
NAV have an immense amour or virtue,
but circumstances he such that it never
becomes manifested in a way to arrest at
terton-a very beautiful light 1t may be,
but not shining under CoHult.on' that ring
1t Wit. halo.
Now that was the case with trr woman
ia the tempe. The halo hunters saw
nothing Int a commonplace wi0oW travel
inv past the contribution box. The Lord,
with whom nimhus does not count saw
and fet what the woman herself meant
aud was TO Him she was the same "a
though she had dropped in thousand
shrke,s but not to others who were pres
ent, fo: others would have reasoned Just rs
people do now. and would have look to
the size of her git to determine the SIC
of her heart and would have conclude!
therefore that she had tWoprnny heart.
Already nineteen hundred years ago tat
poor widow had been become convinced
that "nobody has right to die rich.
She acted on the principle when she threw
in her two mites. No one made ANYTHING
of it Init Jesus, because there was not g,,d'
ing enough upon her advertisement OF me
principe to make the air bright about II.
Nineteen hundred years later the same
principe that nobody has right to a"
die rich" was announced by one quite DIT
fereniN situated from the widow low WIN , tW"
announced it were published and hcralded
Gear around the globe. In the first in.
stance there was only a twopenny halo;
and IN thp other IA mi)lj,T dollar halo and
the hi, ha,o won. 1t cannot be part OF