The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-04-28

Earth Alive With Them.
 In 1s45 a considerable number of these insects visited the Lebanon region in Syria and remained there only few days, just long enough to deposit their eggs and then disappear. In about six months those eggs were matched A short time afterward those small locusts started up the mountain sides. The whole earth seemed to be alive with them. From one matching there seemd to be millions and billions of them. They rolled on like the movements of an augmented river. Then, when the reader realizes that this null ttude of locusts was but the result of one matching and that the same swarms of locusts not only deposited their eggs once but many times during a year, he can to some extent realize the prolific and formidable power of these dreaded pests Each female locust is supposed to lay about eighty eggs at time. Nearly all their eggs are fertile. Thus 1t is pos sble for female locust to have thou sands and tens of thousands of descend ants in single year This amazing power of multiplication staggers. the imagina- ton, but it is only the rapidity of 1t that makes it so wonderful.
 The increase from year to year in the worlds human population is as wonder full Man is here exerting his influence on his generation. What will be his ln- fiuence in the next generation through hls children? We do not realize the past so clearly looking forward as we do look ing backward. You had two parents You had four grandparents and eight great-grandparents. You had sixteen great-great-g grandparents and thirty-two great-great- -great-grandparents And if you trace your ancestors back to the time of William the Conqueror, or about 900 years, you had S00,000 different anoes- tors. And of all your ancestors there is not one whose influence is not being felt to greater or less extent in your life today. Let me illustrate this fact In another way even more startling. William Bradford of Plymouth colony died In l6o1, or about 250 years ago. William Brad ford had only three children, who lived to grow up and be married and have children of their own Their names were William, Mary and Joseph. And yet there are living today in America over 5000 direct descendants of William Brad ford Oh, do not tell me that my great est gospel work is now in my children's lives. I tell thee if I can win them for God, and they, in turn will win their chil- dren for God, within a few generations l will influence for God directly or indi- rectly more people than are today living in the state of California. There never was truer statement made than, The hand that rocks, the cradle is the hand that rules the world"
 Not Hermits.
 But there is another fact to which 1 want to call your attention besides the fecundity of the locusts. It is to their gregarlous habits. These seemingly in- significant insects are not hermits. They do not live alone or trayei alone. They bury their eggs side by side. The young are matched out together. They live to- gether They feed together. They travel together. And as a result they are not only feared on account of their num- bers, but they are especially feared be- cause these swarms of moving locusts can never be split up and separated from each other. Solomon, the inspired natural ist, wrote that, though the locusts have no king they go forth in bands If the locusts did not associate together in such great numbers, the damage they might in- fict would not be seriously felt It would be here a little and there a little. But when they unitedly move along and at tack garden or valley or forest they literally kill and devour everything in sight Why cannot the Christian reform CTS of this world learn mighty lesson today from the gregarious insignificant locusts?
 The forces of evil make no such mis- take as do the children of God The sa- loon never fights the saloon as the church fights the church. There are enough ad- vocates of temperance reform in the church today to sweep the wine sellers out of existence What then is the trou- ble? One-half of those temperance ad- vocates belong to one political party and half to another, and thus their infiu- ence at the ballot box Is absolutely nulli- fled. There are enough Christian today In the land to purify every city, morally as we'll as spiritually. But what Is the difficulty? The church of one denomina- tion will try to undermine the church of another denomination, and there is a common tendency to place sectarian creed higher than the gospel of the cross. The church members act just as though one half of locust's swarm were to go to work and fight the other half of the swarm until they exterminated each other while the rich harvest fields were lying near at hand, full with ripened grain, ready to satisfy even their rapacious hum ger. Oh, that today the Christian men, the disciples of Jesus, could drop all their personal differences and work side by side for the glory and the eternal tri- umph of Jesus Christ!
 Unit for Christ.
 What makes England the greatest fac- tor of the world in international poli-
 
 ways act as a unit In a foreign move ment Though British subjects may have their home differences, as the members of a family criticise each other at their own firesides yet when 1t comes to a foreign policy the world knows that all Britishers will stand shoulder to shoulder to sup port their king no matter what their personal differences may be. even as the locusts in unison will swarm to attack a dense forest. May all the disciples of Christ learn to act as unit for Christ, The most impressive power is the cumu- lative influence of overwhelming num- bers. Internal differences mean friction. Friction brings exhaustion. Exhaustion is the forerunner of death. All that Satan wants is to have one-half of the good Christian men of the world fight the other half of the good men of the world for the glory of God, and then there will be no need for satan to wage battle.
 But there is one more thought that I have about the insignificant insects of my text, and then I am done. After the locusts have eonce taken up the line of march or of flight they can never be headed away from their straight course. When in a midnight tempest the great herd of cattle upon a western prairie take fright and mad with bitter fear stam- pede. the cowboy may ride to the head of the herd and turn the leaders and get them moving in circle but the locusts in their flight can never be headed off from moving in a straight line. Fires may be built ditches may be dug, but they will march on or fly on until with their dead bodies they smother out the flames and fill up the ditches. Then over the corpses of their dead comrades the rest of the swarm will keep steadily on in