The Newtown bee., 1905-06-09
THE HOME CIRCLE.
WAR.SCARRED.

A SERMON PREACHED IN THE NEW |
 TOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH,
 SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 28, 1905, BY
 THE PASTOR, REV OTIS W. BARKER,
 BEFORE VETERANS AND SONS OF
 VETERANS OF THE CIVIL WAR;
 SCARS CREDENTIALS THAT CANNOT
 BE aAINsAID.-GENERAL o. o. HOW
 ARDS HARMLESS sLEEvE.-THE
 wHITE-LIvERED CITIZEN CRITICIsES
 THE MAN WHO SHE'D HIS BLOOD
 THE sLUMBERING SOUTH AWAKENs. |
 SURRENDERED ONLY TO AMERI-
 CANS.-SEARCH WARRANTS UPON
 AMERICAN DECKS.-WHAT GROWS
 OUT OF THE SOD.-KEENAN's LAST
 CHARGE.-THE BOY TRAINED BY
 CHoREs.-THE MEN WHO CAN SHAKE
 HANDs.-"DON'T CHEER, BOYS;
 THEY'RE DYING OVER THERE"
 THEY FOUGHT NOT FOR THEMsELv Es.
 THE LITTLE BLUE FLOWER OF GULL
 LODEN FIELD.
 Text, Gal. 6: F, "From henceforth let no man trouble me, for 1 bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus."
 "If any man suffers as Christian" exclaims Peter, "let him not be ashamed" If any man can give by credential marks of suffering for his convictions good proof of how much they mean to him, the blush of shame need never mantle his brow. These shilly-shally, wish-washy men who never stand squarely for any truth are ciphers who count for about as much as the naughts which a boy carelessly writes upon his slate before the figure. Men who go down to the fields of glory to do and to die for the eternal right, who give themselves willing offering to defend that which they believe, are Oh, have an opinion! Think, and think your thoughts so much into your life that your life is the sum total of your thinking. You may put it down as general rule, my friends, that what costs a man nothing is worth nothing to the man. "Whosoever would be my disciple, let him take up his cross and follow Me-" Jesus meant that our religion should cost us something, that 1t should be tinctured with trial and seasoned with sacrifice. He never meant that it should be the palace-car journeying that we see labeled as Christianity to-day. These Galileans could not afford to put the taunt to Paul that his work for Christ was luxurious procedure. He could, in re- buttal, point to his scars. The Roman lictor's rods had raised great welts upon his back; most 200 times he had re- ceived stripes of his fellow-countrymen, the Jews; over and over again he had been left outside of city walls for dead. Such scars, my friends, are trumpet tongued testimony that your cannot cry down, and they are evil dential marks of devotion that you cannot wipe out. If these Galileans 1on n11 nP ha could point to his scars of Christian warfare and say: "From henceforth
 ret no man trouble me, for I bear in my body
 THE MARKS OF THE LORD JESUS"
 Was it not Pyrrhus who, when he saw how his Roman foes had all fallen in battle with their faces toward their enemies, said, Another such victory and am undone?" You cannot over come men whose wounds speak their conviction even in death. What Chris tian soldier expects to reach Heaven without some scar? Do l mistake it, Heaven is land of rest for those who atorium where pleasurable things are done for those whose invalidism appeals for tender treatment. remember once seeing General O. o. Howard, who was then Pres ident of the Congregational Home Mis- SiOnary Society, lift, at the annual conven tion of this society, his armless sleeve in air with the quiet remark, 'This is the badge of honor I received at Charlottesville. The movement brought the audience to it's feet. What one of you soldiers came back from the war as able-bodied as you went in? For nf haUn hoon 6rorrinr through life a weakened body, scared with the sapping which battle field and march and privation made upon your strength. Men of the Grand Army, in Gods house this morning 1 honor you for your scars. To-day look upon land scared be- cause of the Civil War, scared, still scared, though four decades of sweep ing prosperity have rolled with gather ing flood over our wide-extended acres since Appomattox leaped into fame yonder mountain-side. It carries all before it., catching in it's ponderous rush giant trees as if they were the playthings which boy throws across the room. 1t cuts wide gully and leaves the mountain side as denuded of freshness as an October wind does the unresisting trees. The grasses spring up and Nature with merciful fingers entwines tracery of green that she throws over the unsightly baroness; but the scar of the avalanche is still there. See the giant oak laid prostrate by the heavy blast. The ivy vine comes and tenderly as moth- CT would rock to sleep her child covers the prostrate giant with soft tendrils of green; but the soft careSSes of the vine do not restore the oak as monarch Of the forest, do not remove the scar. The golden glow of sunset throws a mantle of fading glory over field and mead and moor. UnSightlineSS and misshapen form are lost in the glory that the sunset brings; but the dis tigurements of the landscape are there You do not suppose that forty years of unrivalled peace have wiped out every vestige of war that swept the land with carnage and shook to it's foundations this republic of ours? Not even the modifying ointment of many years of piping peace entirely heals over such scars. All! THESE SCARS NEVER WILL BE
 WIPED OUT until the heavens shall be rolled together like scroll and this earth in melting ruin shall dissolve.
 Lines like these deeply cut into the heart of a nations life cannot so easily | be etfaced. spectacle was presented rebellion stretched it's slimy length | over our fair land. The earth drank In the life-blood of our choicest youth