The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1904-05-05

Its winged motnef on SOME Sleeh '"t o'
which it can feed while yet too weak to for
ace for itself. Take your own children, YOU
can count up these things OF trial that
beset the child to an extent that would
make YOU sigh with pity. They have come
into world fraught with pain, privation,
dangers to body and to mind; They are
wrapt in no furS, furnished with no
weapons. provided with no stored up food
in themselves How can they bear these
things and not be moved? How can they
bear them and be happy? Yet they are
little face when the wreathed smile OF an
angel comes there. For the child also
draws its first strength from outside
sources. "God hath set the solitary IN
families" God lets down on The child IN
normal society the protection and pro,
vision of home This is the necessity and
sanctity OF the home; not only that 1t Is
Christian law. not only that it Is moral
law but simply that it is natural law
There are inside sources OF strength.
Neither God nor nature snoi,s the child.
By 9 O'Clock nature withdraw; her morning
dews leaving he growing things TO hnd
new sources Of strength in which to stand
unmoved in the sultry or tn: stormy noon.
Not now the outside dew. but the inside
sap. Nature giving the sprouting gram m
outside supply for its first Jew days now
leaves it TO send its own roots INTO tue
earth. its green leaves into The ar. and by
it's own inward activities transmutc them
into life and growth. The first green leaf
exhausted the caterpillar must now move
off TO find new leaf for itself. From the
children OF men. too, God withdraws the
carly baptism The youth must one day
leave home and its protection ana pro-
vision and bv the exercise OF his own pow
ers wiring living for himself. II now, ne
is to meet these things and not y" undniF
moved. ii he is to meet them like trne
man with courage and strength AMI tri.
umph he must develop the sources Oh
strength within himself.
Here exactly is the weakness OF thIs nrcs-
ent dav Every age has its own strength
and pre-eminence. The strength OF our day
has been the discovery and application OF
the forces Of nature by art and science. to
our daily living in all its branches. We
have turned the bullock cart into the auto
mobile, the tardy sickle into the steam
harvester. the postman going three m'IeS
an hour with letters into the telegraph and
tbe te,ephone. Yet it is always true that
from the greatest strength falls a shadow.
ing weakness. Our fathers had but few
outside forces on which to rely. Not long
were they allowed to lie in the cradle. not
long to p!av in the nursery. Nature was
rugged and rough with them. The o.d
farm house stood far from its ne!ghhor.
drifts of snow or swollen streams oIten lay
between. When the wintry night closed
in there was no public place OF amusement.
no stirring procession OF muititudes under
the electric lights OF the streets, but NOON !
LIGHT and shadows on the lonely country
road. II the family would pass genial
evening they must develop the inside |
sources of the home. OF the hearthstonc IN
the log cabin. and find the comedies and |
tragedies of lie on the stage of their own
minds and hearts. No newspaper or mag
azne alured them out OF themselves. |
There. in their own little world, at their
own fireside. they thought out their poll |
tics. their literature and their theology. In !
education the schools were poorly, :nr-
nished. the teacher but poorly trained, the |
text books hut few and serving the sue
cessive members Of the family IN turn: !
If they were to be educated they must ind |
their education by the painful development |
of their own powers OF memory and reiiec-
ton. You have seeh pictures OF the poor |
school house in which Daniel Wester or |
Henry Clay was trained, or, going gen !
Grafton further back. we may think OF the |
simple school in which George Washington !
or Patrick Henry was educated: yet out .
OF such school houses came leaders who [
founded States. wrote constitutions, built |
a republic, grappled with the diplomacy of |
Europe; out of them came orators whose |
eloluence. though dead on the printed |
page. still thrill the reading soul Gather
them out OF this primitive school house, |
closet them in the Colonial Congress IN |
Philadelphia to fashion out OF their own |
minds, their own destinies and that OF
their own nation and what was the re-
suit?
In religion the churches OF Yesterday |
were bare and cold, no fresco on the wall, |
no inward vision OF spiritual things; no |
organ rolled its music to lead their praise: |
no gifted voices in selected choir lifted |
them out OF themselves on the waxen |
wings of 1carus; no grace OF rhetoric maze |
theology easy. They were left to the de.
velopment of their own inward sources OF
praise. of prayer and OF thought. And |
what Homeric characters they were! JoAa-
than Edwards in barren Stockbridge made |
himself the first philosopher OF his age:
1t may we'll be feared that the church OF !
to-day is doing for the young people Just |
what the schools are doing for them, sur |
rounding them with ever increasing outside |
religious props and stays-societies, clubs, |
brotherhoods. guilds, and now, to add TO
this. comes the threatening addition OF a |
scientific pedagogy" for the simplicity OF
brought up in Sunday-school where there |
were Just two outside sources to help, the |
Bible and question book without an-
swers. You learned to know Your Bible,
YOU came out OF that school into the |
CHURCH and into a Christian service that
has filled the world with Christian phlan-
thropy. The Sunday-schools OF our Chi:
dren are furnished with Vallombrosa or
lesson leaves-primary, intermediate, quar-.
terly, and the teachers with variety OF
helps, ready made expostions, to be famil:.
iarized in the hour between breakfast and
Sundav-school. Ask the average scholar %
turn to the second chapter of Zephaniah
or of Titus, and see the vain turning over
of unfamiliar pages. What can you ex.
pect? How should they cultivate the IN
ward sources OF memory and reflection
when YOU have excused them by supplying
them with all conceivable outside supports
that make memory and reflection super
fiuous. Do you remember that solemn
parable of the seed falling on stony ground,
quickly growing on the shallow soil and as
quickly withering before the heat and the
drought of the growing day? because hay
ing exhausted the supply OF the, outside
source. .'it had no root in itself" As
Christian men. let us lean less and less on
these temporary and childish outside sup
ports and develop these inward sources
nf tborcht o1 reflection of conscience of