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thinking of the almighty dollar. He never saw
God in man, and the reason was that his heart
was impure. He was selfish and greedy and world
centered.
This same friend of mine said that he visited
another mill, and the superintendent said to him,
as a certain young woman passed by: “Do you
see that woman? She is worth more to me than
any other woman I have. .She practically keeps
things smooth and in running order among the
women of the mill. I do not know what I would
do if it were not for that woman.”
“What is her name?” my friend asked.
“Oh; I do not know what her name is; her
number is 113.”
Oh, God! Has it come to this? Yes, it has.
Men and women are so cheap that they do not get
the compliment that a pug dog gets. No, not
worth naming. We haven’t got time to write a
name on a ledger. Haven’t got time to call a name.
Tn his mad rush for gain he never saw God in
that woman. Her temperament, her dispositon,
that made her a peacemaker in his mill, he never
saw as the gift of Go’d. He saw her as a piece
of machinery that he could handle and manipu
late, and bring forth certain results. She was
to him as the throttle is to the engineer. When
he wants power he jerks the throttle open and the
power comes. He never saw God.
That is the curse of this age in which we live,
and it is especially the curse of this, our own
country. I almost, sometimes, feel like praying
God to hold back the tide of prosperity, for it is
about to send the whole South to hell. That is
the trouble with most all of our railroad wrecks
and collisions. Do you know that the train that
killed Mr. iSipencer, the president of the great
Southern Railroad, was turned into a switch by
a lad who worked for about SSO per month,
and who was guarding one of the most important
switches to be found between Washington and
Atlanta, and that, at the time, he had worked con
siderably overtime? And so on all of these great
railroad trunk lines. Is it because they are too
poor to get good men? No. It is because they
want to pile up their dividends, and are willing
to do it at the expense of human life. They do
not see God.
V. SOME SEE GOD.
Thank God, there are people who are not so
sordid that they cannot see God in humanity. A
man suddenly fell on the streets of New York,
and a great crowd of people began to gather. Af
ter* awhile a very prominent business man, before
whose door the crowd had begun to congregate,
came out and said: “Oh! He’s nothing but a
drunkard. Go and call a policeman!”
The policeman came, and because the man didn’t
get up instantly, the policeman whacked him over
the head with his billy. “Give him another; just
what he deserves,” said the business man. But
there was a little woman, a Salvation Army lassie,
who rushed up and said, “No, please don’t hit
him. He is already hurt too much. Let me see
him! ’ ’
She sat down on the sidewalk, picked up his
bleeding head and held it in her lap and stroked
his forehead. After a time the people began to
move away. Some of them carried with them a
truth which they never forgot.
The Salvation Army lassie carried the drunkard
to the army home and cared for him. She nursed
him until he was well, and then she gave to New
York City a great slum-worker.
This girl saw God in humanity. Why? Because
she did not have a self-centered, commercialized
vision. Her eyes were clear.
VI. GOD IN THE CROSS.
The last thing that I want to mention is that the
man with a pure heart sees God in the cross. Here
is where we see Him as nowhere else in this
world. Pity the man who does not find the cross
in the Old Testament ‘Scriptures! Why, my
friends, the man whose spiritual eyes are clear,
ooing back to the Old Testament Scriptures, sees
the cross stamped on every page.
What is the explanation of Cain and Abel? The
world sees a great, cruel tragedy, but the man
with the spiritual vision, which is clear and trans-
The Golden Age for March 7, 1907.
parent, sees Christ foretold in that shed blood.
What is the explanation of Moses leading the
children of Israel into the land of Canaan? The
world says: “He was a great law-giver,” but the
man with the pure heart and clear spiritual eye,
sees Christ in the life of Moses.
What is the explanation of Jonah and the
whale? The world sees a mere myth that ought
to be cut out of the Bible, but the man -with the
spiritual vision that is clear, and whose heart is
pure, sees the grave and the resurrection of our
Lord.
What is the explanation of Joseph in the pit,
carried over into Egypt, and afterwards, the bene
factor and savior of his people? The world sees
a good man. The man with the pure heart sees
Christ.
What is the explanation of all the prophets and
the prophecies? They can only be answered by
Christ himself. The cross is God baptized in love.
On the cross He is the one great magnet around
which all the Scriptures cluster, and the man who
fails to thus see Him, is the man whose spiritual
eye is beclouded; whose heart is impure. Oh, let
ns wake up to realize what privileges we have;
how much God is, and how greatly he yearns to
be fully appreciated and consciously seen and felt
in all the affairs of life!
“Near? Nearer He could not be;
For in the person of His Son,
We are just as near as He.
“Dear? Dearer He could not be;
For in the person of His Son,
We are just as dear as He.
“Pure? Purer we could not be;
For in the person of His Son
We are just as pure as He.”
The Shut-in Society.
About thirty years ago in New York a l\ttle in
valid was sitting before her cheery open fire, just
a little' blue and discouraged because she could see
nothing ahead of her but long years of suffering.
She had been shut in for three years—three years
of great pain and weariness, three yeans of inactive,
restless life —but gradually she had become recon
ciled to her lot, and now she was casting about for
some way of helping others who, too, lived apart
from the busy world.
As she sat musing she began to wonder what
messages would come in the morning in the letters
with which her friends showered her, and she hit
upon the plan of finding other invalids who, like
herself, sat to one side while the world swept by,
and of writing to them. Finally she heard of two,
and these three girls began a correspondence and
the exchange of little gifts, messages, and ideas.
One girl could knit beautiful tatting, and the first
invalid found a market for it, thus enabling the
knitter to pay for the postage and other triflin';
expenses which occurred. Gradually other shut
ins, as they called themselves, were heard of, and
these were added to the list of correspondents, and
now the Shut-in Society numbers 1,600 invalid
members.
The society was never formed —it grew out of
a tender desire to give cheer to a few weary suffer
ers. It is in no way designed to be a charitable
organization. Its aim is simply and wholly to re
lieve 'and cheer the monotony and weariness of
the sickroom and to stimulate faith, hope, patience,
and courage in the heart of the afflicted one. To
be a sufferer, shut in from the outside world, is all
that is needed to entitle one to membership and
its privileges.
The work grew to such proportions that it had
to be organized, and now, with headquarters in
New York City, it has extended all over the Unit
ed States and in Canada. Branch societies in some
of the states extend the cheer which is no longer
entirely carried on by the invalids themselves. The
work attached to it is done by the associate mem
bers, of whom there are at present 900. The as
sociates go about visiting the members who live in
their town, write letters to the ones at a distance,
and remember their birthdays with a letter and a
little gift. Also by the distribution of books, pa
pers, and magazines they bring into the lives of the
shut-ins that which helps to take them out of their
sufferings and troubles. Wheel chairs, bed rests,
hot-water bottles, and other articles which will les
sen their sufferings are lent them without cost.
A paper, the Open Window, is published by
general society, and is sent to all of the members.
Letters from the invalids are printed, and a list of
the members whose birthdays occur in that month
is given. Another column which is read with inter
est is the “Notices and Requests.” In it the mem
bers make their little wants known or tell the other
readers of some good thing which they wish to pass
on to some of their friends. —The Baltimore News.
One Golden Minute.
By Don Marquis.
All through the rain-slashed night I called
On Rest, that held aloof;
The while the gusts danced mockingly
Along the ringing roof.
Dawn came; and then with levelled spears.
And flags blown out behind,
Came charging down the eastward slopes
The Warriors of the Wind.
One golden minute, in the east,
The sun sang through the mist;
And my heart leapt as leaps his heart
Who goes to some glad tryst.
And then athwart the sudden sun
A shrouding cloud-bank whirled,
And I fared forth right moodily
To face a sodden world.
So Love may smile through dun despair
And show one all life’s grace;
So smiling, pass, and leave him with —
A sodden world to face!
Various Views on Prohibition.
Prof. Hadley, of Yale, has declared that, when
the masses of the people are informed as to the
true nature of alcoholic stimulants, and as to the
scientific action of this drug on the physical and
nervous system, public sentiment will demand
that it be put under the same ban as other poi
sons, and that legislative action will be universally
taken in this direction.
Richard Allen White speaks as follows of the
saloon in a recent article on this subject, publish
ed in the Saturday Evening Post:
“The saloon is an evil. It may be deemed a
necessary evil by those who feel bound to apolo
gize for it; but it can have no defenders. Even
where it is licensed, protected by law, under re
strictions which narrow its iniquities to moderate
and expedient vice, the saloon, personified by its
devotees, may be characterized by no adjective more
flattering than miscreant. At its highest estate
it is an outlaw, ami the greatest legal distinction
that the saloon has achieved, after a century of
fighting for statutory recognition is to be branded
generically by the United States Supreme Court as
a nuisance. Its purposes are all venal. It is in
business to promote violence and crime; to injure
the public health; to burden our charities, and to
corrupt the civic morals. The saloon is incarnat*
calamity. Because its work is slow and indirect,
people often fail to see how much it kills and
maims men and tortures women like a malicious
spirit.”
The present legislature of the state of Alabama
is making strenuous efforts toward the dominance
of prohibition in that state. During the past week
a local option bill was passed by a vote of 29 to 1,
and the House will pass favorably on the Moody
Dispensary Bill, which has already passed the
Senate, and the two bills together will make ir
difficult for the liquor traffic to be carried on open
ly in Alabama.
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