The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-11-05
os ANGELES, Cal. October D.

That our lives here are a process 1 of development and that the divine care and protection surround all who trust in God is the theme of the preacher in this sermon. The text is Psalm xi, 1T. "The Lord thinketh upon me-"
 Spiritualistic mediums perpetrate many frauds. But the greatest of their absur- dities is not found in the rappings and groanings by which they apparently sum- mon the dead to their dark paneled rooms and corapel them to speak to their insane victims. It is found in the rdi- culous photography in which the dupes of spiritualistic mediums have their pie lures taken, surrounded as they are led to believe, by the spirit faces Of their loved ones who are near to yet not Of this earth. Have you ever seen any or these fictitious plctures2 Within few blocks of my old eastern home was little stationery store which had its show windows filled with them. Raphael painted his "Sistine Madonna" surround ed by clouds of angel faces. Those de- ceitful photographs that l saw in that window showed believers in spiritual ism surrounded by the faces or their departed kindred and dear ones and friends There they were in those pie lures, the living with the dead. side by side. Could any fraud be more bold, more cruel and more corrupt than that which declares that such pictures are genuine? And yet as l would stop and study these pictures on my way home A.. | to myself, Absurd those pictures are in reality, but how true they are figur- ativelyi" A man is never true man unless he always has many faces about him. You may think he is alone, but he is not alone. These faces, these many unseen faces, hover over him in benedic- tion They smile at him when he smiles They go with him to places of evil resort and rebuke him while he is there. They joke with him. They plead with him. They pray with him. They come and sit by his bed when he is about to fall asleep. They greet him the moment when he awakens in the morning. Some of these faces are old. Some are young. Some are Just budding into young womanhood. Some are middle aged But these faces are always about us. They are about you They are aD0ut me.
 They are about us when we are at home; they are about us when we are away from home. We may be travelling in a railroad train thousand miles away for our own firesides It is the even@ ing hour We are tired of reading tho book We throw 1t down and rest our heads upon our hands and look out Of the window and begin to see many faces. Yes" we say to ourselves, this is the n... ftsae hn babies to bed" People may say we are alone in railroad train, but we are not. We are home l tell you we are at home. We feel the baby boy climb up into our lap and beg us to tell him a story; we see our little girls sitting by the table studying their lessons. After the prayers have been said and the bed room lights turned out and the last jour- ney to the crib has been taken, with its drinking water and the good night kiss. we see our wife go and get the alarming bag filled with lot of the chil- dren's stockings. She sits down by our side. Then she looks up with sweet smile and says, My dear, let us have good talk As we talk she sews the big holes the boys have made in their stockings when they slid down the cellar door, which is their favorite toboggan. There she sits in the railroad train con versing While we are thinking of our absent dear ones. by the teepathy of love we know they are thinking of us. They are constantly by our side. It Is because they are ever present with us in thought that we try to be just as good and pure and true as if we could kiss their lips and talk to them in the flesh as well as in the spirit.
 But are the farces of father, mother. a wife child the only ones that are ever present with us, because they are always thinking of us as we are of them? Oh, no. David, the sweet singer of Israel, says there is another face which we must place over and above the human faces lowering about us That is the face of God. He is planning for us. He is pleading with us. I want to impress on your minds the fact that the Lords face is ever present with us and that he is continually thinking about us.
 The Fathers Care.
 God plans for us a developing friend. He is like a true parent who has child given into his care by the birth angel. The true father does not look into the face of a child and say: Now l have a child I will shield him. I will always keeps him by my side as helpless child.' Oh, no. That is not the true fathers way. No sooner is the little child born into the home than at once the parent begins to plan ahead for that child. He plans for him as baby, as boy, as a youth and as a fully developed man. He starts this planning ahead when he chooses the name for the crstening. The selection of the babys name Is no easy task. The mother may be of poetic temperament, She may desire to give her son name euphonious as some of the romantic names of the wild woods. But the father says: "No. My son in all probability is not going to be poet or a musician He is going to be a plain, practical business man a lawyer or