The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1904-06-01

little face when the wreathed smile OF an
angel comes there. For the child also
draws it's first strength from outside
sources. God hath set the solitary in
families" God let's 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 ls
Christian. law, not only that 1t is moeal
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 withdrlws her morning
dews leaving he growing things to hnd
new sources of strength in which to STAND
nnmoved 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 it's first few days now
leaves it to send it's own roots into the
earth. it's 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 withdraws the
early BAPTISM. The youth must ore day
leave home and its protection and pro-
vision and BY the exercise of his OWL pow
ers wiring a living for himself. II now ne
is to meet these things and not be unduiy
moved, if he is to meet them ike a rue
man with courage and strength and trl--
umph he must develop the sources OIL
strength within himself. 49,.
Here exactly is the weakness of this pres
emit 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 n 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 few
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 muititudes under
the electric lights of the streets, but moon
jirht 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 W
minds and hearts. No newspaper or mag
azine allured them out of themselves.
There. il their own little world, at tneir
own freside, they thought PVT t4eiE P@S
ties, their literature and their theology. III
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 thew were to be educated they must find
their education by the painful development
of their own powers Of memory and retlec'
ton. You have seen pictures OF the poor
school house in which Daniel Wester or
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, built
a republic, grappled with-the diplomacy Of
Europe; out of them came orators whose
eloouence, 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 OWL
minds, their W destinies and that CT
their W 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 Icarus; no grace OF rhetoric mage
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
than Edwards in barren Stockbrldge MADE
himself the first philosopher, OF his age
1t may well be feared that the church OF
to-day is doing for the young people Jus'
what the schools are doing for them, sur
rounding them with ever increasing OUTSIDE
religious props and stays-socleties' CUPS
brotherhoods. guilds, and now, to add TO
this. comes the threatening addition OF .
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, the
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 phlla31
thropy. The Sunday-schools OF our cnll,
dren are furnished with a Vallomorosa OF
lesson leaves-prlmary, intermediate quar-
terly, and the teachers Will d 'aiiS!s ~
helps, ready made expeditions, to be 1amh
iarized in the hour between breakfast and
Sunday-school. Ask the average scholar :
turn to the second chapter of Zephanlan
or of Titus, ard see the vain turning over
of unfamiliar pages. What can you X
pect? How should they cultivate the IN,
ward sources of memory and reflection
when you have excused them by supplying
them with all conceivable o outside sut spOsn'
fuous. Do YOU remember that solemn
parable of the seed falling on stony ground.
quickly growing on the shallow soil and as
Quickly whitening before the heat and the
drought of the growing day? because hay
ing exhausted the supply of ; the 99ts' Se
Christian men. let us lean less and less on
these temporary and childish outside sup
ports and develop these inward sources ei
aigh 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