The Fort Valley leader. (Fort Valley, Houston County, Ga.) 1???-19??, June 26, 1908, Image 2
HIS WEAPONS. Here htnn hie nt lot by th At thrice a b indred f men’s feet He hurled this challenge tr the ft i r, And ii< tinned it with defe 11 To mi* hi }>< droi Him even no pnoi And l he ictory weet! He like a silver mor . his shield, That fronted tin hundred foes, Hut once, upon the tourney-field, He cast it off to wear wound, my rose. healed; Be fought and fell; his it But mine, it grows and grows! Froze to the scabbard, hangs his sword That smote the doughty foe word, to dust, Bis Foffotten taken, like his promised in the years of rust; . But. once jjy spoke; because I heard, 1 trust him still—T trust! —Aloysius Coll, in Lippincott’s. <&00<£0 THE «Struggle on Swartz Kap« ♦ ♦ * * Cy MARK F, WILCOX. With his curly flaxen hair and red cheeks, Piet Joubert was not what you would call pugnacious - looking. He was big and fat, too, or at least he appeared so; but those who had had occasion to feel the grip of his fingers said that the plump fiesli was made of corded steel; and no one in our little South African school cared to pick a quarrel with him. He was a good-natured young giant, though, and rarely did we ever see him in a passion; but then, as the saying goes, he saw blood. One of those times was when he fought the leopard. There were four of us, all stout, country-bred youths of English ,or Dutch parentage, Piet Joubert, David Saalfleld, John Gebers and myself, out for a Saturday holiday, bird shooting in the bush on Swartz Kop, a broad, fiat-topped hill five miles from town. No one of us carried a gun; for, in the first place, we could not afford it, and in the second, there was vastly more sport for us and more ^jchfffic e for die birds in using sling¬ shots.’ .......... ..... None of your factory-made elastics buttoned on a cast-iron prong were these; but thick, tough, genuine rub¬ ber in round red or gray cords the size of a lead-pencil, which we bought by the foot for ninepence, cut into halves, equipped with leather thongs and a pouch big enough to hold acorns and fastened to a stout wooden prong on which was carved In little notches the record of the game killed. We were after rock-pigeon that afternoon, among the squat mimosa shrubs on the undulating hilltop, which was nothing more than a huge block of granite with precipices on nil sides except the one toward the school, where a steep, although con¬ tinuous, slope led to the summit. In the excitement of the chase we wan¬ dered over the two square miles of table-land, until on the side farthest from town, we entered the thickest part, of the bush and became sep¬ arated. Still, we kept fairly close together, for'when Piet shouted we all heard him; but we all mistook it for the cry he usually made after a success¬ ful shot, and we paid no further at¬ torn ion to him. It was only when John Gebers happened to stumble on him, about ten minutes later, and raised a continued outcry that we discovered anything out of the or¬ dinary. David and l found John, with a bloody nose, sparring with a wild, disheveled-looking man, whom, all tatters and gore, we hardly recog¬ nized as Piet Joubert. “Vy not you comes veu I calls! - ’ he roared, and made furiously at us. Finally, by united opposition, we managed to pound him into tame¬ ness and rationality, so that he was able; in his quaint Dutch dialect, to tell us of his experience. ! cannot begin to do justice to that phraseology and the characteristic gestures that, accompanied it; but perhaps it will prove almost as in¬ teresting if I tell the story in plain, straightforward English. He had been crawling across a bare, stony spot near the brow of the hill in order to get within firing dis¬ tance of three brown birds in a shrub, when, suddenly and without the slightest warning, one of those small South African leopards, now so rare among the colonies, and yet all more dangerous because of their in¬ creased wariness and stealth, peared, climbing over the edge of cliff. The surprise was mutual, for fresh breeze blowing in over the had prevented 'he animal from ing the human scent. It drew at first, showing its teeth and as any cat will do when But it was evidently misled by appearance of a human being ing on ail fours, or maddened by ger; for instead of retreating it came, it made ready, all at for an attack. Piet understood the sudden, acing flattening of the lithe body the hare rock, and countered with swift snap of his already loaded He never knew where lie'hit jbeast, but the effect was astounding. With a hideous snarl, like the tear¬ ing of canvas, it came swift as a bul¬ let at him. His sling was lost, his bent arras were thrown against his sides, and there was the chunky, warm body of the animal right against his chest before he could wink! He had risen to his knees to make the shot, and the impetus of the at¬ tack threw him back upon his hams; but with a tremendous qffort he was able to keep himself from going over completely on his back, The beast was ripping the shirt off him with horrid digs of its claws, while its tense, snapping jaws shot hot breath into bis face and sought his jugular vein. Just In time he caught its shoulders with both hands, and by sheet force of will and muscle kept the head away from him. Then it was that he remembered us and called for help; for he found that he had strength enough to keep the animal, for a few seconds, at least, from liis throat, and thought that he could hold out until we came. But the muscular strain must have constricted his voice, for we heard only a short exclamation, and that was all. When we did arrive, the fight was over. Meanwhile an unexpected dig of Ihe thing's claws caught him over the eyebrow, and the gush of blood that followed half-blinded and thoroughly roused him; so that now he began to struggle not only for life, but for re venge. Still wrestling with the beast, he managed to get up on his feet-, and with a Herculean effdrt he tore it from him and hurled it to the ground. Before he could jump on it, however, and crush it under his heavy veld schoen, the leopard had sprung away. It came back immediately, with a high vault into the air toward Piet's face. He met it with two powerful swings of his fists on its bullet head that would have stunpe^an ox; for you must remember that he was a large boy, even for his eighteen ye^rs, and had the muscles of a heavy weight prize-fighter, But the blows caused the leopard simply to drop on its feet, a yard from him, when with incredible swiftness of rebound it leaped again at him, this time catch¬ ing him with its jaws high up on the right shoulder. Fortunately the thick double seams of his khaki jacket turned the ani¬ mal’s teeth, so that the bite was hardly more than skin-deep; other¬ wise it might have proved the end of the doughty Boer. As it was, Piet, with something hot and sticky blind¬ ing his eyes and wetting his shirt, and making him feel that the leopard had got the better of him at last, was maddened to desperation, and put all of his great strength into one last furious attempt to tear the vise-like jaws loose. He gripped the neck, and squeezing hard, jerked savagely away from him. The beast held .on with deadly per¬ tinacity, until the checking of its wind caused it to gasp a little, when, with a sickening tear of clothes and flesh, it came away so suddenly that it was propelled far out of Piet’s grasp, and the recoil sent the boy fiat on his back. He was up again in an instant, rag¬ ing by now with the fury of the con¬ flict. Wiping his eyes on his sleeve, he looked for his antagonist, and was all the more exasperated when he found that it had totally disappeared. He was still blindly and frenziedly hunting it, when John Gebers and the rest of us appeared; and overwrought as he was from the awful struggle, he turned his mad fury upon us. When he had finished his narrative, David Saalfleld peered apprehensive¬ ly over the hill, and asked what had become of the animal. "I not know dot,” replied Piet, in his dialect. "Maype he gone pack to der cave.” “I don’t believe that,” broke in John Gebers, who was the oldest and most experienced of our crowd. ”not after fighting the way it did. It doesn’t usually attack a man, but when it does Which way were you facing, Piet, when you pulled the thing from you?” “I not know,” said the Boer, nurs¬ ing his eyebrow, “Well,” declared John, I believe you must have been facing the preci¬ pice near the edge, and you threw it clean over into the valley.” “Why, dot’s so! I not dinks of dot!” gasped Piet. We all threw ourselves fiat and craned over the edge of the cliff. Only a few feet below was a fissure in the rock that made a narrow ledge on the sheer wall, and seemed to lead into a natural cave. A few days later, armed with a borrowed rifle, we ex¬ plored that crevice; but how we came and saw and conquered the mate of Piet’s leopard is another story. The proof of the Boer’s tale, however, was before our astonished eyes, as we stared into the rocky valley far be¬ low. There, caught upon a jagged boulder, was a bunch of dark-spotted brown fur, which, even at that dis¬ tance, we recognized as the body of a leopard.—From the Youth's Com¬ panion. Of the seven best graduates abroad recently examined in Pekin, China, five had been educated in the United States. 9m <Jht j , Sunbatj-Scftoof j INTERNATIONAL LESSON COM¬ MENTS FOR JUNE 28. it Subject: Temperance, Ephesians 5! 6-20 Golden Text, Eph. 5:18 —Commit Verses 15, 16—Com¬ mentary. TIME.—A. D. 62. PLACE.—Rome. EXPOSITION.—1. No Fellowship With the Unfruitful Works of Dark¬ ness, 6-14. The believer in Christ is a child of light (v. 8), there can be no fellowship between light and dark¬ ness, the believer must therefore re¬ fuse all fellowship with the works of darkness (cf, 2 Cor. 6:17). This set¬ tles our duty about the theatre, dance, etc. etc. These works of darkness bring forth no fruit for God (Rom. 6:21). So far from having fellow¬ ship with them we should “even re¬ prove them,’’ i. e., expose and rebuk© j j their of its badness. work “in “Darkness” secret,” light does does much it3 I work in the open. The things done ! | by those who are “of the darkness” j in secret it is disgraceful even to men I i tion.v Many sins are better unde scribed. Don’t let out the darkness, j ' everything but Jet in the manifest, light . The and light that makes wh$h is thus made manifest by turning the light on to it becomes light itself (v. 13, R. V.) The believer who has any fellowship with darkness is asleep. The sinner is dead (cf. Eph. 2:1). God calls the sleeping believ¬ er, the one who is having fellowship with ness, the to awake unfruitful .from works his sleep of c’pj-k- afid * arise out from among the dead, J. e from the sinners with whom; he’ is 1 fellowahipping, as a live man ai'ifiilSA* corpses (cf. Ro. 13:11). II. Understanding What the Will of the Lord is, 15-17. It will not do to carelessly take it for granted that our walk is all right unless wes have looked very minutely into it. There are two kinds of walk, the walk of the unwise and the walk of the wise. In order to walk wisely we must “buy up the opportunity” (v. 16 R. V., Marg.) As the far sighted merchant buys up all that which he sees to be of large and constantly increasing value, so we must lay hold of every swiftly passing opportunity of doing good and of growth in the knowledge of and likeness to God. The fact that "the days are evil” is not a reason for discouragement, but for more ear¬ nest improvement of every opportu¬ nity that offers. This is a reason for not being “foolish” (v. 17, R. V., a very strong word, literally “without reason,” senseless). The only way to avoid being foolish is by “under¬ standing what the will of the Lord is.” The Lord here is Jesus (vs. 20 and 8), III. Filled With the Spirit, 18-20. Paul here takes up one especial form of folly, a fruit of darkness that has cursed every age since the days of Noah, drunkenness (Gan. 9:20-25). Perhaps Paul warns against this spe¬ cial form of folly because it is the root of almost every other kind of folly. But by God’s wondrous grace one who has been a drunkard may be “washed,” “sanctified,” “justified ,, and may then inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:11). In drunkenness there is “excess” or “riot” (R. V., in¬ corrigibleness, abandoned profligacy). Any one who has had any experience of life knows how true this is. The drunkard becomes lost to every noble I ambition and holy desire. Note that it is drunkenness, not merely with whisky and rum, but drunkenness with wine that Paul warns against and proposes as the cure for drunk¬ enness the only sure cure, being “filled with the Spirit.” To be “filled with the Spirit” means to have the Holy Spirit take possession of the whole being (Luke 1:41, 42, 67; Acts 2:4; 4:8; 31:13, 9, 10). It is nearly synonymous with being “bap¬ tized with the Holy Ghost,” except¬ ing that the expression being “bap¬ tized” with the Spirit is never used of a second experience, while being “filled” is (cf. Acts 1:5 with 2:1-4 and 10:44-46 with 11, 15, 16). When one is “drunk with wine,” wine takes possession of every faculty, and when one is "filled with the Spirit” the Spirit takes possession of ^very fac¬ ulty. Intoxication is the devil’s coun¬ terfeit of being filled with the Spirit. The effects of being filled with the Spirit is that one is lifted on to a su¬ pernatural plane of life and activity. The best way to keep a man from having recourse to the devil’s stimu¬ lation is to have him filled with God’s. He that knows the wine of heaven (Is. 55:1) will not want the wine of hell. The literal force of the words translated “be filled with the Spirit” is “be getting filled with (or in) the Spirit,” i. e., be getting constantly filled. One filling is not enough, there must be a constant inpouring. As to how to be “filled with the Spirit” study Acts 2:38; 5:32; Luke 11:14; Acts 4:31; 8:15-17. When one is filled with the Spirit he will be full of joy and song (v. 19), there will be melody not only upon his lips, hut in his heart as well (cf. Is. 65: 14). But the songs will not be the songs of this world, but “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” The Spirit-filled man is taken up with God and Christ (Acts 2:4, 11; 4:31, 33) and his songs will be about Christ. The Spirit-filled man will also be filled with thanksgiving (v. 20). He will be returning thanks all the time (ef. Ps. 34:1) and "for all things. His Spirit-illumined soul will see something to be thankful to God for in everything (l Cor. 1:4; 1 Thess. 1:2, 3; 2; 13; 2 Thess. 1:3; 2:13; Acts 5:41; 16:25; Job 1:21). * ANTHOINES’ MACHINE WORKS * \\\ m J l t *K ?•* . * jfc®/, • I -Wk .3V , A + ,1 • ** >. f i m j '** ' S, . *■' ? ,.v ... 8-211 Sr if? liMi §T| :» g ;■ 1;|1 K •M: ANTHOINE S MACHINE WORKS, Fort Valley, Ga. ■-'d mm i i \ i it ‘H at. 0 P' 51| . i* a * . ■ * Hv; V: rl HI LIVERYMAN. ■ When Lif t ed of a good buggy or carriage with safe houses and polite drivers, phone 95. CHURCH STREET, NEAR STATION. J Interchangeable i,ogo Mile Individual Exchange Orders, $20.00: =Good over entire Southern Railway System and 33 other carriers. Interchangeable 2,000 Mile Firm Exchange Orders, $40,00:=Good over entire Southern Railway System and 27 other ca rriers; for the separate journey of not more than 5 persons, members or employes of a firm or corporation. 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