The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1903-06-03

was during the crowning, distinguishing
period of his life, but not having happened
during his first four score years to be so
crcumstanced or to be so. plucked Dv
the pull of events as to. discover that ne
was not nonentity. and when summoned
many like him have done since. by alleging
| himself to be constitutionaly unequal TO
the task that was set him. If you ask a
! man to do something who thinks himself
| incompetent and he says "No," You have
tc take his "No." The advantage the Lord
| has is that He does not have to take 2
mans No." did not take Moses No,
| load on him and told him to go along with
| it. and Just the weight of the load made
| him able to 10 along with it, pressure found
| the limp muscles that had been waiting tor
| almost century to be crushed into eXer-
stion. and circumstances not maze MN
great. but gave him chance to be, what
| he and millions of other people are IN con-
dition to he when the chance comes, when
the assassin's bullet strikes, when at the
opportune moment shove is given into
the Pool of Bethesda.
No matter what a person is in native
| acuteness or in inward moral and Christian
beauty, we give him credit for only so
much as has externalized 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,
time seen locomotive looming out OF the
darkness with its flashing headlight, and
that light has appeared to you go briIllant
in the dense night it has seemed to you al
most s.though the front of the engine
were frescoed with section of the sun
and the ground for a hundred rods IN ad.
vance of the train whitened with almost
the brilliancy of daytime. But if you have
had an opportunity to inspect that head
| light and to narrow all this illumination
down to it's fountain source you have very
likely discovered there a 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 fact,
which you are likely to forget: that in es-
timating it you reckoned in the reflector
that was framed to encompass the light
and which made you suppose there was
great deal more luminousness than was act
ually the case. That is the way in which
our estimates generally are arrived a. a.
| original light with the circumJacent refec'
| tor added in-central fame plus the au-
reole.
Now the Lord in His estimates. dis
penses with aureole-which is what Scrip
ture means when it says that He looketh
not on the outward appearance. He IS
never misled by rehectors or by the ab-
sence of 1ehectors A man may have very
little virtue and yet put that virtue into
some snowy achievement with large sn,
perfcial area, whereupon men get OUT
their measuring rods. figure up the area,
consult the multiplication table and decide
what I mean BY computing On basis OF
aureole, adding reflector to the little kero-
sene lamp: On the other hand, person
| NAV have an immense amount OF virtue,
hut circumstances be such that it never
1 becomes manifested in way to arrest at
tention-a very beautiful light it may be,
but not shining under conditions that ring
it with halo.
Now that was the case with the woman
in the temple. The halo hunters saw
nothing hut commonplace widow travel
ing past the contribution box. Inc Lora,
with whom nimbus does not count, saw
and felt what the woman herself meant
and was. To Him she was the same as
though she had dropped in thousand
| shekels, but not to others who were pres.
ent, for others would have reasoned just as
people do now, and would have looked to
| the size of her gift to determine the SIZE
| of her heart and would have concluded
therefore that she had two-penny heart:
Already nineteen hundred years ago thaS
Door widow had been become convinced
| that nobody has a right to die rich"
She acted on the principle when she threw
! in her two mites. No one made anything
| of it but Jesus, because there was not glid'
ing enough upon her advertisement OF the
principle to make the air bright about It,
| Nineteen hundred years later the same
principle that nobody has a right to 40
| die rich" was announced by one quite dl1-
ferently situated from the widow with two
mites; and the principle and the man who
announced it were published and heraldcd
clear around the globe. In the first in
stance there was only a two-penny halo:
and in the other million.dOllar halo, and
| the big halo won. 1t cannot be part OF
our purpose to claim that the illustr!ous
| Scotchman is not just as charitable as the
| inconspicuous Jewess. We are only claim.
ing that the reflector that you frame
around the lamp is no part OF the lamp
and certainly no part OF the blaze that tile
burning oil sustans
It would be interesting to see the cofh-
motion that would have been excited over
her there in the temple had a. heart as
sweet and beautiful as the Lord saw her
heart to be, not been he'd under the liml.
| tations Of ungenerous circumstances, and
| had it been within her means to do all that
| her heart prompted-in other words, had
the conditions under which she lived heen
wide and open enough to match her own
personal nobility. Most people live in
very small world; they are in it and they
and providential if you please, have built
around them an environment close and I'M
prisonlng; possessed OF hearts and lntelli.
| cence larger than the sphere that dcspctic
circumstances permit them to fill. Some
times it may be due to physical debility;
sometimes it comes as the result OF those
untoward conditions in early life that pre-
vented the discipline of personal, powers
and graces, certainly possessed, but sui.
6cientlv cultivated to make them a lad
and sefvIceable potency. Such ones are all
about us and we could give their names.
| Then there is another host Of those who
by the very necessities of life have been
| condemned to an inevitable routine OF
small duties, destined to lifelong slavery
that is not called slavery only for the rea-
son that the lash that is held over them IS
welded by common necessity, not by
Save master.
I feel this very keenly sometimes. when
I stand by the casket of some faithful old
been patiently faithful all the while, tand
then try to speak some kindly memorial
word in her behalf before the casket is
finally closed. There is not very mucl,
that can be said, at least of kind that Is
usually thrown into eulogies. She simply
| did kindly and well lot OF little things
one day, and then the next day did very
much the same things over again, and con.
tinued in that way till the final night
came and she lay down to her long rest.
In the newspaper column of deaths You
read that she was born on such date,
died on such a date and the funeral will be
held on such a day. That is you will find
such a notice az this if there are enough
people that cared for her and if the survi-
vors can afford to pay for the advertise
ment. And that is all. Nothing in the
| nnsn nnt of which to construct the ordinary