Hope Republican, Volume 1, Number 48, Hope, Bartholomew County, 23 March 1893 — Page 3

THEY CROSSED OVER. The Miraculous Pathway That L*d to Canaan’s Shore. “Sweat F>ld. Arrayed la Living Green"— Crossing of the Jordan by tho Israelites -J>r. Talnwge'a Sermon. Dr. Ttimage preached at Detroit, Mich., Sunday, at the Fort Street Presbyterian Church. Text: Joshua lii, 17. ‘‘And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord •tood firm on dry ground iu the midst of the Jordan, snd all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, untii all the people were passed clean over Jordan.” He said:

Washington crossed the Delaware when crossing was pronounced impossible, but he did it by boat. Xerxes crossed the Hellespont with 2,0O0,0!}0 men, but he did it by bridge. The Israelites crossed the Bed sea, but the same orchestra that celebrated tho deliverance cl tho one army sounded the strangulation of the other. This Jordanio passage differs from all. There was no sacrifice of human life—not so much as the loss of a linchpin. The vanguard of the host, made up of priests, advanced until they put their foot at the brim of the river, when immediately' tho streets of Jerusalem were no more dry than the bed of that river. It was as if all the water had beon drawn off, and then the dampness had been soaked up with a sponge, and then by a towel the road had been wiped dry. Standing on the scene of that affrighted, fugitive river Jordan, I learn for myself and for you, first, that obstacles when they are touched vanish. The text says that when these priests came down and touched the water—the edge of the water with their feet —the water parted. They did not wade in chin deep or knee deep or ankle deep, but as soon as their feet touched the water it vanished. And it makes me think that almost ail the obstacles of life need only be approached in order to be conquered. Difficulties but touched vanish. It is the trouble, the difficulty, the obstacle far in the distance that seems so huge and tremendous. There is a beautiful tradition among the American Indians that Manitou was traveling in tho invisible world, and one day he came to a barrier of brambles and sharp thorns, which forbade his going on, and there was a wild beast glaring at him from the thicket, but as he determined to go on his way he did pursue it. and those brambles wore round to be only phantons, and that beast was found to be a powerless ghost, and the impassable river that lorbade him “ashing to embrace the Varatilda proved to be only a phantom river. Well, my friends, tho fact is there are a great many things that look terrible across our pathway' which when we advance upon them are only the phantoms, only the apparitions, only the delusions of life. Difficulties touched are conquered. Put your feet into the brim of the water and Jo-'dau retreats. I always sigh before I begin to preach at the greatness of the undertaking. but as soon as I start it becomes to me an exhilaration. And any duty undertaken with a confident spirit becomes a pleasure, and the higher the duty the higher the pleasure. Good John Livingston once on a sloop coming from Elizabethport to New York, was dreadfully frightened because he thought he was going to be drowned as a sudden gust came up. People were surprised at him. If any mau in all the world was ready to die, it was good John Livingston. So there are now a great many good people who shudder iu passing a graveyard, and they hardly dare think of Canaan because of the Jordan that intervenes, hut once they are down on a sick bed then all their fears are gone. The waters of death dashing on Ihe beach are like the mellow voice of ocean shells —the smell of f e blossoms of the tree of life. The music of the heavenly choirs steals over the waters, and to cross now is only a pleasant sail. How long the boat is coming! Come, lord Jesus, come quickly!

One would have thought that, if the waters of Jordan had dropped until they were only two or three feet deep the Israelites might have inarched through it and have come up on the other bank with their clothes saturated and their garments like those of men coming ashore from shipwreck, and that wouJ/J have been as wonderful a deliverance, but God does something better than that. When the priests’ feet touched the waters of Jordan and they were Irawn off, they might have thought there would have been a bed of mud and slime through which the army should pass. Draw otf the waters of the Hudson or the Ohio, and there would be a good many days, and perhaps manv weeks, before the sediment would

dry up, and yet here, In an instant, immediately, God provides a path through the depths of Jordan; it is so dry the passengers do not even get their feet damp. Oh, the coxnSleteuess of everything that God oes! If God makes a Bible, it is a complete Bible. Standing amid the dreadful and delightful truths, y r ou seem to be in the midst of an orchestra where tho wailings over sins and the rejoicing over pardon and the martial strains of victory make the chorus like an anthem of eternity. This book seems to you the ocean of truth, on every waveof which Christ walks—sometimes iu the darkness of prophecy, again with the splendors with which he walks on Galilee. In this book apostle ar.swersto prophet, Paul to Isaiah, Revelation to Genesis—glorioue light, turning midnight sorrow- into the mid noon joy, dispersing every fog, hushing every tempest. Take this book; it is the kiss of God on the soul of lost man. Perfect Bible, complete Bible! God provided a Savior. Ho is a comp] cte Savior—God-man—divinity and humanity united in the same person. He set up tho starry pillars of the universe and the towers of light. He planted the cedars and the heavenly Lebanon. He struck out of the rock the rivers of life, singing under the trees, singing under the thrones. He quarried the sardonyx and crystal, and the topaz of the heavenly wall. Ho put down tho jasper for the foundation, and heaped up tho amethyst for the capital and swung tho twelve gates, which are twelve pearls. In one instant he thought out a universe, and yet he became a child, crying for his mother, feeling along the sides the manger, learning to walk. Oh, the complete Savior, rubbing his hand over tho place where we have the pain, ybt the stars of heaven the adorning gems of his right hand. Holding us in his arms when we take the last view of the dead. Sitting down with us on the tombstone, and while we plant roses there he planting consolation in our heart, every chapter a stalk, every verse a stem, every word a rose. A complete Savior, a complete Bible, a complete ur \e.rse, a complete Jordaniacpassage. Everything that God does is complete. God didn’t intend this world for an easy parlor, through w r hieh we are to be draw'n in a rocking chair, but we are to work our passage, climb masts, fight battles, scale mountains and ford rivers. God makes everything valuable difficult to get at. for the same reason that he put the gold down in tho mine and tho pearl clear down in the sea —to make us dig and dive for them. We acknowledge this principle in worldly things; oh, that we were only wise enough to acknowledge it in religious things! You know this is so with regard to the acquisition of knowledge. The ancients used to say that Vulcan struck Jupiter on the head, and the goddess of wisdom jumped out, illustrating tho truth that wisdom comes by hard knocks. There was a river of difficulty between Shakespeare, the boy. holding the horses at the door of the London theater, and that Shakespeare, tho great dramatist, winning the applause of all audiences by his tragedies. There was a river between Beniamin Franklin, with a loaf of bread under his arm, walking the streets of Philadelphia, and that same Benjamin Franklin, the philosopher, just outside of Boston flying a kite in a thunder storm. And so there is, my friends, a tug, a tassel, a trial, a push, an anxiety, through which every man must go before he comes to worldly success and worldly achievement. You admit it. Now be wise enough to apply it in religion. Eminent Christian character is only gained by the Jordanic passage; no man just happened to get good. The Christian has passed the Bed sea of trouble, and yet he thinks there is a Jordan of death between him and heaven. He comes down to that Jordan of death and thinks how many have been lost there. When Molyneux was exploring the Jordan in Palestine he had his boats knocked to pieces in the rapids of that river. | And there are a great many men who have gone down in the river of death; the Atlantic and Pacific have not swallowed so many. It is an awful thing to make shipwrecks on the rock of ruin; masts falling, hurricanes flying, death coming, groanin gs in the water, meanings in tho wind, thunder in the sky, while God with the finger of the lightning writes all over the sky. “I will t.r.md them in my wrath, I will trample them in my fury.” Tho Christian comes down to this raging torrent, .and he knows ho must pass out, and as he comes toward the time h ; s breath gets shorter, and his last breath leaves him as he steps into the stream, and i no sooner does he touch the stream I than it is parted, and he goes through j dry shod while all the waters wave | their plumes, crying: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy vi- tory?”

TOPICS OF THESE TIMES. GEN. HARRISON. Notwithstanding the disadvantages under which Benjamin Harrison entered upon the. duties of Chief Executive by reason of the reputation that he had acquired on account of certain characteristics of manner, and his unfortunate coldness of temperament that gave offense to many where no offense was intended, repelling rather than attracting many influences that would otherwise have added largely to the success of his administration, all, or nearly all, .parties and the general public are willing to concede to him unimpeached integrity and unswerving patriotism in the discharge of the functions of the exalted station which it was his good fortune to occupy for the full term of four years without private scandal or public misfortune. Closer friends to the ex-President will resent even the implied censure in the above and will insist that Gen. Harrison has been sorely misunderstood and misrepresented in this regard, and that he is in fact one of the most genial and companionable of men and far removed from the chronic acerbity of temper that many have ascribed to him, and that have brought to him the enmity of former political friends, and as many will insist have been an important factor in bringing about the political misfortunes ! that have caused his retirement to : private life. It is unpleasant to re- j call this phase of Gen. Harrison’s | character, which has been so great a disadvantage to him, but it serves to emphasize the undisputed fact that he retires from office generally respected by unprejudiced men of fffl parties as a statesman and patriot of elevated character and superior ability. With a comparatively few exceptions, it can be truthfully said that few Presidents have exhibited a more conscientious regard for their responsibility in the selection of public servants, and in many cases these selections have shown a high perception of what was proper and fitting in the case before him that has lifted him above the groveling partisan to the domain of exalted patriotism. When all has been said against Gen. Harrison and his administration, by political enemies outside of his party or personal enemies within it, the fact will remain that he has served his country uncommonly well. The machinery of the government has moved smoothly under his supervision, no great scandal has developed, and the moral tone at the capital has been good for the past four years. While Gen. Harrison has probably failed to create a personal following or an enthusiastic devotion that a more, magnetic man might have done, yet the figure he has presented on all State occasions has been always dignified and respectable, and in many ways he has managed to come nearer to the popular heart and to the Republican idea than any President since Lincoln. That President Harrison is a man of brains and strong will is conceded by all, but his chief title to fame and to the gratitude of his countrymen will rest upon the fact that he was one of the first American statesmen to appreciate the significance of the great revival of the American spirit which has been one of the most remarkable developments of the past few years. Whatever may have been his mistakes or shortcomings, in this regard he has never wavered in his fidelity to the flag that is the glory and pride of our people. In all our foreign relations from the Samoan affair to Hawaiian annexation. Gen. Harrison's impulses and actions have been wise, patriotic, firm and unequivocally American, and his public career may well be said to have shed additional luster upon the line of distingushed patriots whose blood flows in his veins. Added to the general good-will that has come to him for his public services has been given the heartfelt sympathy of the people in his great bereavements. That, “one touch of sorrow makes the whole world kin” has once more been strikingly illustrated in the case of this sorely stricken man. who, followed by the solicitous care of the great mass of people, irrespective of party, laying down the pomp and splendor of his high estate, hurries at once to his comparatively humble home,*nor seeks to tarry amid the magnificence that has been bis, and

ere the sun has set upon the decorations of his native city, streaming from every window, tower and masthead in his honor, and in the midst of a most generous and spontaneous welcome tendered by his old-time fellow-citizens of all political complexions, hastens to the grave of the loved one to weep the bitter, unavailing tears that only flow from true hearts, be they high or low. Tim question of the opening of the World’s Fair on Sunday is one that has two sides, at least, as is the case with the majority of matters that come before the public for discussion and settlement. Viewed from the standpoint of public morals there can be no doubt that the opening of the gates on Sunday would be of great benefit to the mental health of a great mass of people, as well as detrmental to the thousand evil influences that are likely to beset the sojourner within Chicago’s gates on the Sabbath day. Looked at, however, from a strictly religious standpoint, and taking into consideration the physical welfare of the army of employes of the Exposition, who would be deprived of their natural rest for a term of six months, the question assumes a different aspect. Whether the physical welfare of a limited number of people shall be held of paramount importance tothe mental and moral welfare of a numberless mass, who would be attracted to the exhibition if kept open on Sunday, is the real issue, involved in the controversy that is being conducted on the subject. The New York World has collected some statistics with reference to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in that city, that will be of interest. This institution is open all day on six days of the week, and Open only half a day on Sunday. The records show that during 1892 the average week-day attendance was 1,288, and the average Sunday attendance 4,750. The most puritanical zealot would hardly claim that the people who viewed the refining treasures of this great institution during the limited time that it was opened on Sunday wore injured in any way—mentally, morally or physically—while the evil effects of the limited time that the employes were compelled to pursue their usual avocation on the Sabbath day—while not desirable from a religious standpoint—was more than counterbalanced by the greater benefits to a large number of people. The Chicago Exhibition has cost vast sums of money, and will be open to the world but a limited time. It would seem the part of reason to make its priceless treasures available to the greatest degree practicable with safety to the health of the employes, possibly closing the gates at an earlier hour on Sunday. But to bar the eager millions out during the only day that large numbers of them will find it possible to attend, and to throw a vast transient population into the streets to be entertained by the demoralizing attractions of a metropolis, is so, manifestly a wrong solution of a vexatious problem that it seems a phenomenon of stupidity, and the wonder is that such a measure. has received the sanction of law and of many good people. “The World’s Fair must not be closed Cn Sunday.” Athens is said to be one of the most desirable cities in the world from a diplomatic point of view, and the eyes of many patriots who have an inherent admiration for royalty, and a desire to serve their country, are turned in that direction. Extraordinary jealousy prevails between rival political factions in Greece, and as a result the King and royal family abstain from hospitality to the people of their own country, and their social intercourse is restricted ot the foreign diplomatic corps of their court. Athens is a sort of winter resort for all the royal families of Europe. The Prince and Princess of Wales, and the Empress Frederick of Germany are to spend several weeks in the ancient city this spring. Thus a diplomatic representative at the Grecian court has the opportunity of forming the personal acquaintance of the reigning families that can be obtained at no other European capital. Gen. Meridith Roade, formerly our minister to Athens, is said to have a more extened acquaintance among princes of the blood, heirs apparent, grand dukes, archdukes, and all the titular dignitaries known to courts and crowns, than any American living.

WAR IN INDIA. Bfitlsh Troops Victorious In a Sanguinary Conflict With Native Tribes. A Calcutta cable of the I4th says: The British have had a severe battle with tribes beyond Chiltral, where the British have been for some time endeavoring to strengthen the Indian frontier against the possibility of Russian encroachment. The British recently occupied Chllas, beyond Chiltral, with garrison, and fortified the place with the intention of holding it permanently. The mountain tribes took offense and made an attack on the fort, which was bravely defended by the British. The conflict was desperate and sanguinary, and the natives were at length driven off with a loss of 200 men. The British then took the aggressive and marched against the entrenched villages of the hostile tribes. Owing to the mountainous character of the country this expedition was extremely hazardous, but the British troops acquitted themselves gallantly, storming village after village, under the command of Maj. Daniel, who was himself shot through the heart while leading his men in anassaulton one of the villages. Every point occupied by the hostile natives was carried, the British losing twenty-three killed and 330 wounded in the fighting. The tribesmen finding themselves unable to resist any longer submitted to British authority. The result of the struggle greatly strengthened the British position at what was considered its weakest points in the vicinity of the Hindu Kush. CHOCTAW HONOR Murderer Lorlnif’s Narrow Escape—A Wild Wostcru Drama. Elias Boring, the Choctaw murderer, who was to have been shot at the Pushmataha court ground, Monday, had a narrow escape. Ho had been at largo according to the native custom, and had great difficulty in reaching the place of execution because of high water. When he arrived at the place of execution he bade good-bye to his two wives and twenty children. His coffin was brought and placed by his side and the preparation for execution begun. Boring was stripped to his waist and given some purple ink to paint a heart over his own heart. He then sat down on his coffin. He was blindfolded, and Sheriff Johnson stepped off fifteen steps and raised his Winchester,but before ho had time to shoot he heard a whoop, and looking around he saw a mounted courier coming at full speed. It was Governor Jones’s light horseman. Ho had a stay of execution Issued by Governor Jones and ordering that Boring be tried again in the Circuit Court. Boring smiled and said “Chickma,” which means, in English, “good.” FURIOUS FLOODS. Too Much Dampness In Australia—Dam. #16,000,000. The Australian papers, which arrived at San Francisco on the steamer Alameda. Thursday, printed graphic details of the great flood at Brisbane and its suburbs last February. In the city of Brisbane and its suburbs the damage done by the floods is estimated at *15,000,000. There was a fall of sixty-seven inches of Vain in three days, and three steamers were floated out of the river and landed high and dry in the botanical gardens. The towns of Bundama, Ipswich and Godna were all under water, ajd the people had to flee to the hills. Seven men were drowned in a mine at Ipswich, four of them members of one family. The seven men went to work as usual In the morning. The floods broke in. and within a short space of time the place was flooded to within thirty Inches of the surface. The miners were caught like rats in a trap, and had not even a fighting chance for their lives. REPUBLICAN NATIONAL LEAGUE. Next National Convention to Be Held at Louisville, May 10. J. 8. Clarkson, President of the National Republican Beague. has Issued a call for a National convention of that body to meet at Bouisville, Ky . May 10, and for the National convention of the American College Beague at the same place May XI. Party workers are urged to prepare for the Congressional elections next year and to get in lino for the Presidential contest in 1896. All persons in sympathy with the policy and principles of the Republican party are urgently invited to attend. TERRE HAUTE ENTERPRISE. Terre Haute sports are combining to build a club house, to be located on the Vandalla railway, four miles from that city, with a seating capacity of 2,500 persons. It is proposed to offer purses for pugilistic events which can he. palled off for *1.000 or thereabouts. Just Fun. Father (to son) — “Understand, Charles, that I have no sympathy with the sporting proclivities your college career has developed, and 1 sincerely hope that at the dinner to which you are going to-night, should your hostess venture any statement which does not entirely -accord with your undoubted superior knowledge, you will refrain from offering to bet her ten to one that she is dead wrong.'—Judge. “Parker writes a great many bright children’s sayings, doesn't he?" “Yes. He does first-rate in that line. He sits down and tries to fancy the things his boy would say if luj wasn’t so dull.”—Harper’s Bazar,