The Penn's Grove record., 1904-05-06

little face when the wreathed smile Of al
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 ia
normal society the protection and pro-
vision Of home. This is the necessity and
sanctity Of the home: not only that it 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 sDoIls the child.
BY 9 O'Clock nature wlthdrdwi her morning
dews leaving he growing things to ind
new sources of strength in which 10 stand
unmoved in the sultry or tn stormy noon.
Not now the outside dew. but the inside
sap. Nature giving the sproutlng grain an
outside supply for its first few days now
leaves it to send its own roots into the
earth, its green leaves into the air, and by
its own inward activities transmute them
into life and growth. The first green Leaf
exhausted the caterpillar must now move
off to find a new leaf for itself. From the
children Of men, too, God wlthdraws the
early baptism. The youth must one day
cave home and its protection and pro-
vision and by the exercise Of his pow
ers wiring a living for himself. If now ne
is to meet these things and not be unduiy
moved, If he is to meet them like a true
man with courage and strength and 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 falls a shadow
ing weakness. Our fathers had but Jew
outside forces on 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 ~neighbor.
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 multltudes undo
the electric lights of the streets, but moon
light and shadows on the lonely country
road. If 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
azine allured them out Of themselves.
| 1UGTe. IN NUGiI OWN lLLAE AOtl us dI AhEAh
own freside, they thought out their poll
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 find
their education by the painful development
of their own power OF memory and reiiee-
ton. You have seen pictures of the poor
Ill - - --LsoL nonTal NIaefaE oF
Henry Clay was trained, or, going a 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, buiit
a republic, grappled with the diplomacy Oh
Europe; out of them came orators whose
eloquence, 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 a selected choir lifted
them out of themselves on the waxen
wings of Iearus; no grace OF rhetoric made
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! iona
han Edwards in barren Stockbrldge made
himself the first philosopher OF his age
1t NAV 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-sOcletles, clubs.
brotherhoods, guilds, and now, to add to
this. comes the threatening addition OF 2
scientific pedagogy" for the simplicity OF
the ~Sunday-school. Some OF you were
brought up in a Sunday-school where there
were lust two outside sources to help, ths
| Bible and a 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 filed the world with Christian phllan
thropv. The Sundav-schoOls OF our chill
dren are furnished with a Nalombrosa Of
lesson -leaves-primary, intermediate, quar-,
| terly, and the teachers with a varlety OF
helps, ready made eXpOsltlOns, to be tamil
iarized in the hour between breakfast and
| Sundav-school. Ask the average scholar Z
turn to the second chapter OF ZephanlaA
or of Titus. and see the vain turning ovsA
of unfamiliar pages. What can -
pect? How should they cultivated
ward sources of m and
when you have excused them by
them with all conceivable outside
that make memory and reflection
fuous. Do you remember that 81
parable of the seed falling on stony grodsN
quickly growing on the shallow soil and
quickly whitening 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
| of thought, of reflection, Of conscience, OF
high duty with which God has endowed US,
that amid all "these things Of task and Of
trial we may rise as the sea gull rises
against drowning wave, binding spray.
battling wind, rises into the calm Of the
upper air by means Of its own well disei-
plined wings.