Connecticut western news., 1905-02-09

doZing in her chair by your bed? Jesus, thou son of David. have mercy on mel cried blind Bartemeus in his physical weakness to the passing Christ. Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on mel we have cried to Christ in our physical torture. Do you not see any blessing ill pain. any spiritual mission in physical suffering in your past life?
 The Blesscdness oE sickness.
 Beneficent is the sick bed for the invalid. Blessed is it's influence upon those who come in touch also with the sanctifed sufferer. Wendell Phillips would not have been as brave and as true a man as he was had his life not been inspired by the bravery of that sick wife who always kept saying to him: "On, Wendell, on! God has a mission for you. While you are out battling in his name I will be here praying and waiting for you" Could any one read the eulogy Robert J, Burdette wrote about his dead wife and not realize that the frail little woman whom he for years carried around in his arms had mighty mis sion in molding and developing her husbands life for spiritual good? By the letters my mother wrote me from her sick room and by the letters you have received from sick wife or sick daughter or a sick mother who was at that time In the shadow of death you know that some of Gods mightiest agents for the salvation of the world are to be found among those of pale cheeks, thin hands and fevered brows. Oh, mo- my friends, God will never take out of this world the spir- itual mission of physical pain and suf- fering until, through those sufferings. the multitudes have been brought to confess Christ at the foot of the cross.
 An Easy Task.
 Easy would 1t be for God to make right might and to melt the iron heel of tyranny in the hot fires of his ill dignation and righteous wrath. Easy would 1t be for God to come forth with his great legions of angels and ride down the hillsides of heaven upon the white charger of victory. Easy would it be for God to destroy his puny ad- versaries, as they are trying to destroy his kingdom on earth. How do know this? In the first chapter of Proverbs I read that when the time shall draw near for God to bear his right and come to the defense of his children by the overthrow of his enemies God shall say: "I also will laugh at your calnm- ity I will mock when your fear cometh." God will easily overthrow his adversaries when the right time comes But now even sin has it's mis- sion. The battle against sin can devel- op us, even as a youth can be develop ed in his struggles against the trials of the world.
 Injustices have their benefcent mis- sion? How else would you ever appre- ciate what the pardoning love of Christ meant unless you learned 1t through your willingness to forgive those who have ''reviled you and perse- cuted you and have said all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake" Don't you remember how you were distressed by calumnies and false charges uttered by some malicious enc my? How angry and furious you were against the calumniator! You have learned your lesson now; you have learned how to forgive. Was it not in trying to overcome those bitternesses and hatreds that you were led into the realization of the truth that God is love and that we must forgive men tisair trespasses, even as our Father in heaven forgives us our traspasses. Oh, yes, injustices have their spiritual | mission They have taught us that the | true gospel does not consist simply in | showing how we should reach out our | hands to our friends, but also how we | should reach out loving hands to our enemies. In triumphing oyer the | wrongs by which we are surrounded | God is teaching us how, for his sake. we | can triumph over our own evil selves. |
 Death Might Re Abolished.
 Easy would 1t be for God to make | death an impossibility. When Christ l stood by the bier of "the only son of | his mother, and she a widow" he was able to make a silent corpse. open its | eyes and sit up. He said, Young man, | I say unto thee, arisew When Christ | went to the tomb of dead Lazarus he | said to Mary and Martha: Thy broth | CT Is not dead. He is only asleep" Christ looked upon death then in the | same way you and I would stand over l the crib in which slumbers one of our little children. We know that we can | bend over the crib and kiss our little | one and say: Wake, baby. Papa is | here" Then the baby will awake and | come to our arms. Christ only had to | speak, and Lazarus came forth. The | day is coming when Christ will speak | and all the family tombs and the | Gods half acres" and the lonely | graves on western prairies and the | wrecked and sunken hulks of the At | iantic and the Pacific oceans lying at | the foot of coral reefs will give up their | dead. But until that day death must | reign, and only through death can we | enter into life and into that land where | there is no more death.
 Has death no purpose in the divine | economy? Have all the agonies and | sorrows and bereavements no wise de- | sign? Ask that father who when he | parted with his beloved child learned | to love and trust God and lived hal |
 
 once more elasping her in his arms. | Ask that husband whose wife passed | from his ken and whose days of lone | Illness drove him for comfort to him | whose love brlghtens every sorrow. It 1 is at a fearful cost that some men | learn the lesson of faith, but once | learned they bless even the loss that | taught tEem.
 Our earthly loss may mean our heav- enly gain. The agonies of death may | yet be swallowed up In victories that | shall never die. There is q beautiful | legend told that in the far east king | was to make long journey. He there fore sent ahead of him his representa- | tive to build for him palace in which | he might live while he sojourned there. | He provided this forerunner literally |