The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1904-05-04


.anctity of the home not only that it is
Christian. law, not only that it is moral
'aw. but simply that it is natural law.
There are inside sources OF strength.
Neither God nor nature snoiis the child.
By 8 o'clock nature withdraw' her morning
1ews leaving ;be growing things to hnd
new sources of strength in which to stand
inmoved in the sultry or tn! stormy noon.
Not now the outside dew. but the inside
sap. Nature giving the sprouting grain an
outside supply for its first few days now
leaves it to send its own roots into the
earth, its green leaves into ,he air, and by
is own inward activities transmute them
exhausted the caterpillar must now move
off to find a new leaf for itself. From the
children of men, too, God withdravs the
early baptism. The youth must one day
leave home and its protection and pro
vision and by the exercise OF his own pow
ers wiring living for himself. II now. he
is to meet these things and not be unduly
moved. if he is to meet them like a true
man with courage and strength AMI tri.
umph he must develop the sources OF
strength within himself
Here exactly is the weakness OF this pres.
ent day. 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 miles
an hour with letters into the telegraph and
the telephone. Yet it is always true that
from the greatest strength IA ls shadow
ing weakness. Our fathers had but few
outside forces or which to rely. Not long
were they allowed to lie in the cradle, not
long to play in the nursery Nature was
rugged and rough with them. The Old
farm house stood far from its neighhor,
drifts of snow or swollen streams often lay
between. When the wintry night closed
in there was no public place OF amusement,
no stirring procession of multitudes under
the electric lights OF the streets, but moon
light and shadows on the lonely country
road Ii the family would pass a genial
evening they must develop the inside
sources of the home, of the hearthstone IN
the log cabin. and find the comedies and
tragedies of life on the stage OF their own
minds and hearts. No newspaper or mag
azne allured them out OF themselv YES
There. in their own little world. at theli
own fireslde. they thought out their poIl'
tics, their literature and their theology. In
education the schools were poorly, FUR
nished, the teacher but poorly trained, the
text books but few and serving the sue
cessive members of the family IN turn
If they were to be educated they must lind
their education by the painful development
of their own powers OF memory and rehec.
ton. You have seen pictures OF the poor
school house in which Daniel Wester OF
Henry Clay was trained, or. going a gem
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 oi
Europe; out OF them came orators whose
eloouence. though dead on the printed
mage still thrill the reading soul. Gather
ptbeem ont 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 iresco on the wall
no inward vision of spiritual things: no
organ rolled its music to lead their praise
no gifted voices in a selected choir lifted
them ont of themselves ON the waxen
wings of Icarus: no grace of rhetoric made
theology easy. They were left to the de-
yeloDment of their own inward sources oi
nraise. of nrayer and of thought And
what Homeric characters they were! Jona
than Edwards in barren Stockbridge made
himself the first philosopher of his age
II NAV we'll be feared that the church o
TODAY ia 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 t.
this. comes the threatening addition of q
scientific pedagogy" for the simplicity Of
the Sundav.school, some of You were
brought nm in n Sunday.school where there
we're lust two outside sources to help, the
| Bible and a question book without an
swers Won learned TO know your Bib,e
Won came ont of that school into the