The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-04-24

days of eager desire for great weal..- and social position, when multitudes are ab- sorbed in the struggle for worldly suc- cssses. this sermon comes as a wholesome and timely warning that 1t is possible to pay too high a price for fortunes favors and that fame may be too dearly bought. The text is Judges xii, 30, Alas my daughterr'
 An old trite saying declares, What is worth getting is worth paying for But the payment demanded for what we is often more than mere silver and gold. It may cost the pound of flesh near the heart of an Antonio, and it may mean sil- yer or gold. crmsoned by having been diped andrusted and dyed in human blood.
 "Yes I will own that land. l will yet be master of Daylesford manor house." These were the words uttered by young pauper. then being educated in the char. lty school of the little hamlet of Church. i'll, in Oxfordshire, England. That Daylesford manor house had once been the property of Warren Hastings great grandfather. Warren Hastings, for that was the pauper's name, was then moth erless lad. and the son of a good for noth- ing, shiftless father, who had fled to England to find his grave ultimately in the faroff West Indies. Aye, Warren Hastings as a man fulfilled the pledge he made as a boy, but he paid dearly for what he was after. He paid for Dayles- ford manor house with money purchased by years of exile, years of toll, years of persecution. What was worth having was worth paying for but the price for the Hastings ancestral home came very high.
 Jephthah's Ambition.
 We'll today we find General Jephthah having great ambition. He was not only seeking a noble and legitimate goal, but he was rashly and recklessly ready to pay any price to reach that goal. Jeph- thah had two objects In reaching this goal of his ambition The first was to wipe out the stigma on the record of his birth. Like Alexandre Dumas. he could never mention the name of his mother without bringing a blush of shame to his cheek. Secondly, Jephtah wanted to drive out the invading Ammonitish host who were theratening to destroy his people. So the night before the great bat tie opened General Jephthah in his mili- tsry tent made a pledge something like this: "Oh God, if tomorrow thou wilt only give me success, if thou wilt allow me to atone for the awful record of my birth by being deliverer of my people from these invading herds of cut threats, 1 promise thee that whatsoever cometh forth from the doors of my house to meet me when l return in peace from the child ren of, Ammon shall surely be the Lords and I will offer it up for burnt offer ing"
 Hardly had the roar and din of battle ceased when messengers on swiftest of horses sped everywhere. They rode as fast as Paul Revere galloped towards Lexington and Concord to arouse the mnutemen to rise and resist the invas- ion of the British soldiers, as fast as Nathan Mayer Rothschld rode to reach London the night after Wellington's triumph at Waterloo. Everywhere the hard riding couriers shouted the news to an exulting people: "The land is free! The and is freel Jephthah has won! Jephthah has wonP'
 A Foolish Pledge.
 When the Roman generals came back from their conquests, they were given triumphant entry into the capital of the seven hills" No more enthusiastic ovation was ever awarded to the military chieftains of the Caesars than that which now welcomed the liberator of the Israelitish people. The maidens came forth to dance before him, and to strew flowers in his way, and to sing their sweetest songs, as the school children welcomed Lafayette on his last Journey through our own land. Such music and songs and flowers as afterwards welcom- ed King Saul after the destruction of the Philstines were surgng over General Jephthah in great tidal waves of harmon ious sound or surrounding him with huge floral rainbows, dyed in the richest of colors, with this one exception-General Jephthah had no taunting name of shepherd boy to imbitter him with jeal- ousy, But as the Isrealitish liberator comes nearer to his house we see a great commotion Suddenly this mighty leader stcns and staggers like a drunken man for there coming out of his house. Jeph- thah sees his beautiful daughter, his only child stepping forth to greet him, and by the terms of his VOW she must be the scrifice for his great conquest
 This pledge which Jephthah made to God was a very foolih one. God did not want General Jephthah to slay his daugh- ter: neither does he want us to make the foolish sacrifices some of are willing to make in order to win temporal success in life. Therefore I shall try in this ser mon to catalogue some of the foolish sacrifices some of us make upon the alter of fortune and to protest against them.
 The Parents Duty.
 First. God would never have us, like Jepbthah, destroy the spiritual and phy- sical and temporal lives of our children. He would never have us so engrossed In our work that we would neglect our own flesh and blood" and care not how our boys and girls might turn out. He