Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1905-03-30

public eve at present, because of his re-
marks concerning a mans usefulness END
ing at forty, Is notable In the eyes II MS
friends. for the sacrifices he has been &C
customed to make In order to do wnat ne
feels to be his real work. He repeatedly
refuses to be called into consultation pe-
cause he has mo time to make money.
He would never nave a telephone put into
his house, wishing to escape the petty
cares which burn up a mans energy, IN
order that he might be free to do his real
work. The Masters w must work.
sounded in his soul.
The placard which we find on so many
business desks today. DO 1t now has
really a religious significance, for 1t ex-
presses the zeal OF Jesus Christ. He felt
himself to be the light of the world. He
knew the shortness of time. He saw the
near end OF all his human effort. So he
hungered for work. with a hunger that is
divine in whatsoever It may be found.
Mud and q Miracle.
In very homely fashion Jesus went about
performing a miracle of cure upon the
blind man. He spat upon the ground, and
made clay of the spittle. n Amounted
the eyes of the blind man with the clay,
and then then sent him to the pol OF Sill
pam to battle therein. There was no need
of this, except to make faith easy for the
~ Ii q AoA6" NH@h "''
Jesus demands great faith of those who
follow him, yet he trys to make that
faith easy. The clay was but a crutch
for the weak believer to lean upon. Be
sides. he wanted to test the mans obedi-
ence. BY obedience comes deliverance.
THAI is Gods law 1t may be said rever-
enIy that God cannot help "A man in spite
of himself. The mud which the blind man
put to his eyes. was really a prerequisite
to the miracle.
And faith must show itself by work. The
story is familiar of the little girl who
prayed that the trap which her brother
had set for the birds might not catch
any Of the pretty creatures. Then she
went out and smashed the trap. When the
ministers OF a city are called upon to
face grave social conditions, then is not
err for public prayer-then is the time for
them to show their faith by their works.
Instead Of praying God to smash he
traps, they should 20 out smash them
themselves.
Food for the Gossips.
The %neighbors figure largely in this
story. a anything be hid from the curl
Gus eyes of ones neighbors? The inter-
est which we take in one another, how
ever. Is a sign of our common relationship.
as members Of one big family. The neigh
bors Of this bin man who was healed
simply could not help talking about it. To
and fro the questions passed. us 1t he?"
Can 1t be ne?" THAT man was blind,
this man Sees" Surely 1t must be an
other like him." We ear picture the high
voiced, g~esticulating orientals as they de-
bated this important neighborhood SUBJ
ject.
They could scarcely credit the fact that
the man who had been born blind now had
his sight. any more than the wife of a
certain mission worker. who told the story
the other day, could believe that. when he
returned to her one night. after years OF
drunkenness. and told her that he was a
changed man. could believe that she really
had a made-over husband. The tests to
which she put him were hard, but his past
had deserved 1t.
And what an opportunity all this gos-
sip gave to the man cured of blindness!
words on this subject would outweigh the
dicta Of all the rabbie Nothing that
prophesy said concerning the Messiah
would loom as large In the eyes of these
people. as the fact that the man had been
cured of blindness by the power of the
Jesus of Nazareth. There Is no pulpit
%eloquence to equal the simple testimony of
a man who has been saved and knows 1t.
That is why the rescue missions, which
49, ~ oA AA NhAS oSAkSO III w AtO
care much for fine speaking. They are
conducted largely on the plan of hearing
testimonies from converts. The Salvation
army Is this month celebrating the twen-
ty-ffth anniversary of its advent into
America. And it has had no better tes-
timonial h a "Ash-barrel Jimmy" its
first recruit. A letter from the queen of
England would not have been as good
credentials on the east side Of New York
as the fact that 1t had made "Ash-barrel
Jimmy" into q man. clean. strong. self
respecting and useful.
The keeltess lawyer that ever cross-ex-
amined a witness IL no match for simple
truth-telling. The witness who sticks to
what he really knows cannot be entangled
in his own testimony: for truth is always
consistent with itself. The Pharisees tried
their hardest to enmesh the blind man who
had been cured but he confined himself
to the facts within his own knowledge and
therefore baffed them 80 completely that
they could only cast him out OF the syna-
gogue by an arbitrary and unjust exercise
of their power. Thus blind mindedness
begets other offenses: the bigot quickly
becomes the unjust man.