Year: 1879

oPASl t1Au Sd1 1ISI10u Hc SOdp.
boiler of London could not keep his son
in that business for God
had decided that Hawley was
to be one of the greatest astronomers of
England. On the other hand. we may
be born in sphere little higher than
that for which God intended us. We
may be born in castle and play in cost
ly conservatory, and feed high bred point
ers, and angle for goldfish in artificial
ponds, and be familiar with princes; yet
God may better have fitted us for car
penter's shop, or dentists forceps, or


weaver's shuttle, or blacksmith's forge.
The great thing is to find just the sphere


for which God intended US, and then to


occupy that sphere, and occupy it forever.


Here is man God fashioned to make


plough. There is man God fashioned


to make constitution. The man who


makes the plough is just as honorable as


the man who makes the constitution.


provided he makes the plough as we'll as


the other man makes the constitution.


There is woman who was made to fash


ion robe, and yonder is one intended


to be queen, and wear it. It seems to


me that in the one case as in the other,


God appointed the sphere, and the needle


Is just as respectable in His sight as the


scepter. l do not know but that the


world would long ago have been saved,


II some OF the men out of the ministry


were in it, and some of those who are in


it were out of it. Ireally think that one


halt OF the world NAV be divided into


two quarters-those who have not found


their sphere, and those who, having
found 1t, are not willing to stay there.


How many are struggling for position
little higher than that for which God
intended them? The bondswoman wants
to be mistress. Hangar keeps crowding
Sarah. The small wheel of watch
which beautifully went treading it's
golden pathway, wants to be the balance
wheel, and the sparrow, with chagrin,
drops into the brook because it cannot,
like the eagle, cut circle under the sun.
In the Lords army we all want to be
brlgadier generals! The sloep says,
"More mast; more tonnage, more canvas.
Oh, that I were top sail schooner, or a
full rugged brig, or Cunard steamer" :"
And so the world is filled with cries of
discomfort because we are not willing to
stay in the place where God put US and
intended us to be. Nv friends, be not
too proud to do anything God tells US to
do. For lack Of right disposition in
this respect the world is strewn with
wandering Hagars and Ishmaels. God
has given each one OF us a work to do.
You carry scuttle Of coal up that dark
alley. You distribute that Christian
tract. You give $4,000 to the mission.
ary cause. You, for rs years, sit with
chronic rheumatism, displaying the
beauty Of Christian submission. What
ever God calls you to do; whether it win
kissing or huzza, whether to walk under
triumphal arch Or lit the sot out of the
ditch; whether it be to preach on
Pentecost or tell some wanderer of the
street of the mercy of the Christ of Mary
Magdalen; whether it be to weave
garland for laughing child on spring
morning, and call her a May queen, or to
comb out the tangled locks Of waif of
the street, and to cut up one of your old
dresses to fit her out for the sanctuary
do it, and do it right away. Whether it
be crown or yoke, do not fdget
Everlasting honors upon those who do
their WORK, and do their whole work, and
are content in the sphere in which God
has put them; while there is wandering
and exile and disolation and wilderness
for disconted Hagar and Ishmael.


Again: find in this Oriental scene a
lesson of sympathy with woman when
she goes forth trudging in the desert.
What great change it was for this Ha-
gar? There was the tent and all the Sur
roundings of Abraham's house, beautiful
and luxurious, no doubt. Now, she is
going out into the hot sands of the
desert. Iniquities blot out all the lights
of that home circle. Harsh words wear
out her spirits. The high hope that
shone out over the marriage altar while
the ring was being set, and the VOWS Civ
en-, and the benedictions pronounced,
have all faded with the orange blossoms,
and there she is to-day, broken-hearted,
thinking Of past joy and present desola-
tion and coming anguish. Hagar in the
Wilderness! Here is beautiful home.
You cannot think of anything that can
be added to it. For years there has not
been the suggestion Of a single trouble.
Bright and happy children fill the house
with laughter and song. Books to read.
Pictures to look at. lounges to rest on.
Cup Of domestic joy full and running
over. Dark night drops. Pillow hot.
Pulses t1utter. Eyes close. And the foot
whose we'll known steps on the door-sill
brought the whole household out at even
tide, crying, "Father's come," will never
sound on the door-sill again. A long,
deep grief ploughed through all that
lightness of domestic life. Paradise lost!
Wiaowhood. Hagar in the Wilderness!


How often it is we see the weak arm
of woman conscripted for this battle with
the rough world. Who is she, going down
the street in the early light Of the morn
ing, pale with exhausting work, not half
slept out with the slumber of last night,
tragedies of suffering written all over her
face, her lustreless eyes looking far ahead
as for the coming of some other trouble?
Her parents called her Mary, or Bertha,
or Agnes, on the day when they held her
up to the font, and the Christian minister
sprinkled on the infants face the wash
ings of holy baptism. fer name is
changed now. I here it in the figure of
the faded calico. l find it in liReaments
of the woe-begone countenance. Not
Mary, nor Bertha, nor Agnes, but Hagar
in the wilderness. May God have mercy
upon woman in tolls, her struggles, her
hardships, her desolation, and may the
great heart of divine sympathy enclose
her forever.


s"Send the Bill to my Husband


Realize, reader,sa NewYork paper,
the anguish of lady compelled to stand