Pike County Democrat, Volume 30, Number 34, Petersburg, Pike County, 29 December 1899 — Page 6

The Body of the Dead General Taken to Manila Under an Escort of Cavalry. IDE TEMPORARILY PLACED IR A VAULT. SWPbeatU of the General Hu Caused Uni* re real Sorrow lu Manila, Where He was Popular with American* and Natives Alike—PlUplno Mayors Will Attend the funeral. Manila, Dec. 21.—Maj.-Gen. Lawton’s body was brought from San Mateo to Manila yesterday afternoon, his staff and a squadron of cavalry acting as escort. It was found necessary to bridge the river. disposition of the Remains. ‘ The funeral will take place from his late residence here, a mansion formerly occupied by a Spanish general. The body has been placed temporarily in a vuult in El Paco cemetery, where many of the American soldiers have been interred, and a guard of honor will be maintained. When Mrs. Lawton and her four children shall have completed their arrangements for returning to the United States, the remains will be taken on a transport with an escort of officers for final interment, as is thought probable here, In Arlington cemetery. Caused Universal Sorrow. * Gen. Lawton’s death has caused universal sorrow in Manila. No American officer had greater popularity among all ranks, and in his dealings with the natives he commanded their respect and confidence to a remarkable degicc. The mayors whom he installed in the neighboring towns are arranging to attend the funeral in a

body. Covered the Programme Assigned. ! To his executive ability and personal leadership is chiefly due the brilliant execution of the plan of campaign in north Luzon, which has scattered the insurrectionary forces from San lsidio to the gulf of Lingayen. That section of the island which had to be traversed during the very worst season of the year, presented difficulties considered by all acquainted with it to be almost insurmountable, but Gen. Lawton thoroughly covered the programme assigned him. Shared the Lot of His Men. When he reached Tayug and found the other division had not arrived, he went through to Dugupan on his own responsibility. Although he imposed great hardships on his men, he invariably shared their lot cheerfully. The Wounded at San Mateo. Thirteen Americans, including three officers, were wounded in the engage* meat at San Mateo, where Gen. I^wton was killed. Capt. Breckinridge’s wound is not considered dangerous^ although the bullet penetrated his arm and side. The Poreee Engaged. It is estimated that the insurgents numbered 500, and that half of them were armed with rifles. The Americans numbered 1,300, but the command had been much depleted by sickness. The wagon train found the roads impassable and was obliged to return. The insurgents retreated to the northwest, leaving six dead. A Rebel Stronghold. They have other forces near Taytay. This region, although elose to Manila, has proved the most difficult from which to dislodge the enemy. It is now reported that the insurgents intend to concentrate at Santa Cruz, Laguna province, and in the district cast of Laguna de Bay.

GLIMPSES OF LAWTON. cIncidents In the Career of the Intrepid Soldier Showing the Stuff He urn* Made of. The following review of the career of Maj.-Gen. Henry W. Lawton will be lead with added interest, in vieuf of his recent death at the hands of a Filipino sharpshooter in Luzon: A Native of Ohio. Henry W. Lawton was born in Ohio 58 years ago. He was a country boy and got •niy a common school education—not any too much of it. It is to be doubted if he would have learned a great deal if kept steadily at college until he attained his majority. Emphatically he is not a hook man. Studying the printed page has been to him always a task and never a pleasure. Men are his books—men nnd happenings. His folk were plain tanner folk. From them he derived his length and stse of bone. The tremendous muscles, the tireless endurance which have marked him in later life had the beginning of their development m the open air •f the Aelds of his boyhood. In person Gen. Lawton was a wonder. Standing 6 feet S Inches high, as straight as a rule, with long arms, wide shoulders, deep chest and thin flanks, he weighed 196 pounds of bone and muscle when 25 years aid and recently weighed 210. Not a Political Soldier. Lawton never was a political soldier. ■When he got his commission In the regular army he was astgned to a regiment which was soon sent out to tho frontier. There he gained the great reputation as ao Indian fighter which had much to do with his early selection for a command In the war with Spain. His regiment was most of the Indian campaigns from 1868 1888. But that whicl\v.rmy officers most with the fame of Lawton was pursuit of Gerontmo. Twice this born lighter took a force across the Mexican border and followed the trail of the wily Apache chief into the fastnesses of the SierraMadre. It is an Interesting fact that KtlClpation In this Apache campaigning ught out the fighting qualities of Surgeon Leonard Wood, and laid the foundation of a reputation which induced the Kministration to authorise nim to organ- > the Rough Riders. Lawton and Wood were together in the Geranimo campaigning. They found themselves together •gain last June at Santiago, Lawton headh^a^division and Wood commanding a Twenty Year* In the Line. After his 20 years’ service in the line, which made him famous as an Indian campaigner, Lawton, in 1888, was transferred to the staff as a lieutenant-colonel and assistant inspector-general. He was stationed in Washington 10 years. »md was occupying a desk ai the war oepart»ent when the hostilities with Spain came •n His field record stood him well >c his

prayer for active service. When the ruafc from the bureaus to command took place Lawton was one of the first officers given a high commission and put In charge of mobilised regulars. Had he been of like rank, Lawton, and not ohatter, would have had the command of the Santiago expedition. As It was, Shatter put Law* ton and his regulars forward tor the most responsible work. He rolled upon tins trained soldier to take SI Caney and 10 close In on the city from (he north. Law* ton came home with his division to Montauk. He had his season of being lionUod, to which he did not rake with enthusiasm. The military critics found no haw in his part of the campaign, and the newspapers never drew him into controversy with his superiors or with his subordinate commanders. No speech ol nis was ever reported which called forth ccn- , sure or started wordy war. During the winter a great dinner was given at Washington to war heroes. Generals and admirals and other officers of high rank were present. Speech followed speech. Some wise things were said, and also some things not particularly wise. Lawton's turn came. He arose amid a hearty round of applause. He bowed in fruit, to the right and to the left. Then he sat down without a word. The act was done handsomely. It was lust like Lawton, who is frequently described by brother officers as the most modest man in the aimy.*’ A Story. Credited to Lawton. The'story of the returned soldier from Santiago who met profuse admiration with the response, “I ain't no hero; I'm only a reg’lar,” is said to have originated with Gen. Lawton. If the general did not start the story he Was one of the brat to tell It, and the satisfaction he took in the repetition was very plain. A Medal of Honor Man. Tlmt Gen. Lawton was a medal of honor man. is not generally known. This most prized decoration of the American army was conferred upon him "for distinguished gallantry In leading a charge of skirmishers against the enemy's rlfio pits, taking them with their occupants and stubbornly and successfully resisting two determined attacks of the enemy to retake the works.” It was In front ol Atlanta In August, 1864, while captain of Company A, Thirtieth Indiana, that Lawton thus distinguished himself.

The Pursuit of Apaches. It was Lawton's reputation for daring and tireless pertinacity that led to his becoming internationally famous. His characteristics were known, of course, to his superior officers as thoroughly as they were known to the Indians whom he had been lighting for a dosen years. For the tenth time the band of Chricahu* Apaches, headed by Chief Naches and directed by Geronimo, had jumped the San Carlos reservation, leaving behind them the usual trail of blood and ruin. Ranchmen were butchered on lonely ranges, children’s brains were dashed out, and the smoke of burning dwellings rose day and night to the briliant blue sky. Gen. Miles, a trained soldier and an Indian tighterhimself, was in command, and he selected Capt. Lawton for the task that was set I before them. He started with two troops ! of veterans, taking a trail'that at its beginning was broad and plainly marked. Then followed the most remarkable pursuit in the history of Indian warfare. Day after day the ceaseless toll continued. Tbs men speedily found themselves in a country where horses without claws were of worse than no account. Their officer dismounted them. "We will wal* them down," he said grimly. The walk began. It was white filuck and endurance against Indian craftiness and endurance. Terrible Experiences. Over rocks that blistered the hands when touched, in ravines so deep and dark that through the narrow rift far overhead the stars were visible at noontide, up the sides of huge hills down which trickled rivulets of dust, threading paths along precipices which frowned upon green valleys 5,000 feet below, drinking of cold, clear springs that gushed above the clouds, sometimes in the sun-baked desert, again clambering far beyond the timber line, Lawton ana his followers struggled on. Week succeeded week. Men dropped, fainting, in the giant hills and their comrades passed on. There was no time to stay. They were left to find their way back to the reservation as best they could. Indian and white were focmen worthy of each other’s steel, and the issue of the congest was in doubt to the last day. A Supreme Test of CournKe. Finally, one night just as the sentries were set, there was a faint hail and an India* stood before them. He was worn to the bone but dauntless still. He said that his chief would talk to the white man, but would talk to him alone. His camp was some miles further on, but the meesenger .would guide Lawton to it if he cared to come. The noncoms, endeavored to persuade the captain against the venture.byt he smiled sourly at them and told the Indian that he was ready. They left the camp of the soldiers the next morning. By ten o'clock Lawton stood in the Apache horde. Cavernous eyes gleamed at him. Lips drawn back from discolored teeth grinned at him. Wasted hands wore waved at him threateningly. Stern, dominant, the living, breathing personification of the great Whtte Spirit that had beaten them back from the far eastern verge of the land they had owned, he walked straight to the medicine man and demanded his surrender. There was a brief parley. Lawton contemptuously refused, to promise, anything or to guarantee anything, except that he ana his followers would be fed. “Maybe you will be hanged afterward,'* he said. “I don’t know about that. Anyhow, you ought to be. But I'll feed you. I’d food a dog in your fix." Apache Resistance Broken. A month afterward Geronimo, Naches and their band of cutthroats were prisoners in Florida. Not only was the power for evil of this particular tribe nulifled, but the spirit of Apache resistance was broken. It had been demonstrated that they could be beateo at their own game. Once again the white man had shown them that he wasnheir master, mentally, morally and physically. It was this service which called Lawton from the west and landed him in Washington, with much official prestige.

THAT MORTGAGE MUST BE PAID A Call for Aid to Place Gen. Lair* too’*' Widow and Children Above Want. Washington, Dec. 21.—The following, which explains itself, was issued yesterday: Washington, D. C., Dec. 20, 1899. Maj.-Gen. Henry W. Lawton, United States volunteers, whose death occurred at San Maeto, Island of Luson, on December 19, 1899, has left little hut his good name as a legacy to his wife and children. A piece of property purchased by him as a home. In California, has a mortgage of half the purohase price still outstanding and unliquidated. The undersigned have voluntarily associated themselves together for the purpose of raising funds to pay off the Indebtedness. Contributions will be thankfully received by them, and be devoted to the object hereinabove set forth. The aid of the newspapers of the country is requested. Contributions will be received by enyone of the following: H. C. CORBIN. Adjutant General, Washington, D. C. JOHN F. WESSON. Acting Commissary General, Washington. WM. LUDLOW, Brigadier General, Havana, Cub*. WM. R. SHAFFER. Major General. San Francisco. Senator Fairbanks, of Indiana, lius introduced a bill granting a pension of $2,000 a year to Gen. Lawton’s widow. Aid for the Widow of Gon. Lawton. Indianapolis, Ind., Dec. 21.—Within two hours after the publication of the appeal of the war department for aid for the wife of Maj.-Gen. Lawton, $500 was subscribed in this city by seven persons. Capt. W. E. English, who served with Gen, Lawton in the Span-ish-American war, headed the list with $100. H. H. Hanna, who was at the heao oi trie monetary commission, alon s ubscribed $100,

ill MIL the Fund to Secure the Homestead of the Lawton Family Will Be Made Up. TIE CONTRIBUTIONS ME COINING IN. Army Officers, Men Is Public Place* and Private Clttaena Vie with Each Other la the Effort to Smooth the Pathway of tie WU« ow aad the Orphans. Washington, Dec. 22.—Adjt.-Gen. Corbin, the head of the committee charged with the collection of funds for the benefit of the family of the late Gen. Lawton, is in receipt of expressions of sympathy and of willingness to co-operate from all quarters of the country. Some of these are accompanied by contributions of money, and altogether there is promise of a generous response to the committee’s appeal issued Wednesday. The brokerage firm of Worden & Co., of New York, has voluntarily undertaken to collect funds on the stock exchange. The committee aim to collect at least $25,000. The First Contribution. The first contribution in \tashington came from a clerk in the Avar department, who contributed $2 from his salary to start the list of contributors.

Gen. Corbin received a telegram from Gen. R. A. Alger saying: “1 send $100 for the Lawton fund.” Maj.-Gen. Shafter at San Francisco, telegraphed that he will do everything in his power to help Mrs. Law ton. A telegram was received from Mr. C. H. Hamilton, of Milwaukee, saying that the citizens of that city authorized him to offer $1,000 as a nucleus of j a fund for the widow and family of Gen. Lawton. For llrave Old Lawton. Gen. Corbin received a telegTara from Col. Seybum, of the inspectoi general’s department, • contributing $100 for “brave old Lawton.” A subscription of $50 was received from J. A. Porter, of this city. A Generous Response. Gen. Corbin received a telegram from a gentleman in Pennsylvania, w ho does not wish his name made pubj lie, contributing $1,000 to the Lawton fund. X)ther contributions received this morning are as follows: Secretary John Hay, $100; Assistant Secretary H C. Taylor, $100; Mrs. Addison Porter, $100; McCoskey Brutt, of New lork, $100. Depository of the Fund. The Riggs national bank, of thin city, has been designated as the dt pository of the Lawton fund. Lieut.Col. Clarence Edw-ards, who was temporarily acting as Gen. Lawton’s chief of staff, has been instructed by the secretary of war to superintend the transportation of Gen. Lawton’s remains and accompany them to this country. GEN. CHA9. KING’S SUCCESS. Milwaukeeans Thanlc Him For • Chance to Snbserlbe. Milwaukee, Dec. 22.—In answer to the appeal from Washington for subscriptions to pay off the mortgage on | Gen. Lawton’s home, Gen. Charles King, who for a time commanded a brigade in Gen. Lawton’s division, drew up a subscription paper to-day and has already s< cured a handsome return. Gen. King says: “Talk about republics being ungrateful. It is given the lie to-day. Men have come to me to tender their sympathy and subscriptions, and in my personal canvass a dozen have said: ‘Thank you for the chance to do something for the sake of Lawton.’ ff other towns begin to do half that has been done in Milwaukee and Indianapolis, that mortgage will be lifted in 24 hours.”

THE LATE MAJ.-GEN. LAWTON. Senor Calderon Says It wu “The Saddest Day to the Ftllptada” 'When Lawton Died. Manila, Dee. 21, 5:05 p, m.—Gen. Lawton’s body will be removed from his late residence to the cemetery Friday. In accordance with Mrs. Lawton’s wish there will be no ceremony, only a prayer. The late general’s staff, and Lieut. Stewart's troop of the Fourth cavalry, which accompanied (Jen. Lawton through the campaign, will compose the escort. The actual funeral ceremonies will take place in about ten days, when the transport sails, under the direction of Gen. Schwon and with military honors. The civil organizations, including the supreme court, will participate, and Senor Calderon will lead the Filipinos who were associated with Gen. Lawton in the organization of the municipalities. Senor Calderon said it was “the saddest day for the Filipino nation to see lost not only the foremost advocate of peace, but their best friend." -&_ G*D. L«Wlnii’. Washington, Dee. 22.—It is said at the war department that the vacancy in the list of major generals of volunteers caused by the death of Gen. Lawton will not be tilled until after the funeral services over his remains at Manila, prior to their transportation to the Untied States. It is said among well-informed army officers in this city that the appointment will go either te» Gen. John C. Bates, Gen. S. B. M. Young or Gen. Lloyd Wheaton. These officers hold the rank of briga dier general of volunteer*

A CHRISTMAS SERMON Dr. Talmage Tells the Story of the Incarnation. UaihlM nl Shadow oa the Cradle •I the ^Saviour—Practical Use Made at Reltgioes Festival Day a. [Copyright, 1898, by Louis Klopach.} Washington, Dec. 84. The story of the Incarnation is here told by Or. Talmage in a new way, and practical use is made of these days of festivity; next, Matthew 1:17: “So all the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations, and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are 14 generations, and from the carryihg away Into Babylon unto Christ are 14 generations.” From what many consider the dullest and most unimportant chapter of the New Testament I take my text and find it full of practical, startling and eternal interest. This chapter is the front door of the New Testament, through which all the splendors of evangelism and apostolicity enter. Three times 14 generations are spoken of in my text— that is, 42 genefationS, reaching down to Christ. They all had relation to Him. And at least 42 generations past affect us. If they were good, we feel the result of the goodness. If they were bad, we feel the result of their wickedness, If some were good and some were bad, it is an intermingling influence that puts its mighty hand upon us. And as we feel the effect of at least 42 generations past we will in turn influence at least 42 generations to come, if the world shall last 1,000 years. So you see the cradle is more important than the grave. 1 propose to show you some of the shadows upon the Christie cradle of Bethlehem and then the sunshine that poured in upon the pillow of straw. Notice among the shadows on that infant’s bed that there was here and there a specimen of dissolute ancestry. Beautiful Ruth his ancestress? Oh, yes! Devout Asa one of his forefathers? Oh, yes! Honest Joseph his father? Oh, yes! Holy Mary his mother? Oh, yes! But in that genealogical table were idolatrous and cruel Ammon and op

I pressive Eehoboam and some men whose abomination# may not be particularized. So you see bad men may have good descendants. One of the most consecrated men I ever knew was the son of a man who lived and died a blasphemer. In the line of an oppressive Eehoboam comes a gracious and merciful and glorious Christ. Great encouragement for those who had in the 42 generations that preceded them, however close by or however far back, some instances of pernicious and baleful and corrupt ancestry. To my amazement I found in those parts of Australia to which many years ago felons were transported from England that the percentage of crime was less than in those parts of Australia originally settled by honest men and good women. Some who are now on judicial benches in Australia and in high governmental position and in learned and useful professions and leaders in social life are the grandsons and granddaughters of men and women who were exiled from Great Britaiivto Australia for arson and theft and assault and fraud and murder. Since we are all more or less affected by, our ancestry we ought to be patient with those who gt> wrong, remembering that they may be the victims of unhappy antecedents. How lenient it ought to make us in our judgment of the fallen! Perhaps they had 42 generations back of them pushing them the wrong way% Five hundred years before they were born there may have been a parentage of iniquity augmented by a corrupt parentage 200 years ago. * Do not blame a man because he cannot swim up the rapids of Niagara. Do not | blame a ship captain because he cannot j outride a Caribbean whirlwind. The father of this man who does wrong may have been hll right and his mother all right, but away back in the centuries there may have started a bad propensity which he now feels. One of the Ten Commandments given on Mount Sinai recognizes the fact that evil may skip a generation, when the commandment speaks of visiting “the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation,” tyit says nothing about the second generation; and if evil may skip one generation why

not two and three and four and five „ generations, making a mighty leap and alighting very hard upon the head and the heart of some poor victim? Better be a little merciful toward! the culprit lest after awhile some hereditary evil born in the year 1600 or 1700, having skipped the centuries, alight just as heavy upon you. Meanwhile keep carefully your family records. The old place for the family record in the Bible, between the Old and the New Testaments, is a most appropriate place. That record, put in such impressive surroundings of chapter, bounded on one side by the prophecies of Malachi and on the other side by the gospel of Matthew, will receive stress and sanctity from its position. That record is appropriately bound up with eternities. Do not simply say in your family record: “Born at such a time and died at such a time,” but if there has been among your ancestors some man or woman especially consecrated and useful make a note of it for the encouragement of the following generations. Two family records of the Bible—*he one tv. Matthew reaching from Abraham t*j Christ and the other In Luke beginning with Joseph and reaching back to the garden of Eden, with the sublime statement “which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.” I charge you to this duty of keeping the family record by the 42 generations which are past and the 42 generations which are to come. It is a J5 *>od thing'—the new habit abroad

of seeking- for one** pedigree. The old family record hardly ever went back further than the grandfather and grandmother. Not one of us knows anything about our great-grandpar-ents, although they may have been in* describably better than their children or grandchildren. Another shadow of the Christie cradle was that it stood under a depraved king. Herod was at that time ruler and the complete impersonation of all depravities. It was an unfavorable time for innocence to expect good treatment. So dark was the shadow dropping on the cradle from that iniquitous throne that the peasant mother had to lift her babe out of it and make hasty flight. Depraved habits of those in authority are apt to be copied by subjects, and from the immprals of the Herodic throne I judge of the immorals of a nation. There was a malaria of sin in the air when the infant Christ first breathed it. Thickest shawl could not keep the babe warm when in that wintry month, with his mother, he became afugitive. It was while the peasant and his wife were on a visit for purposes of enrollment that Jesus was born. The Bible translators got the wrong word when they said that Joseph and Mary had gone to Bethlehem to be “taxed.” People went no farther then to get taxed than they do now. The effort of most people always has been to escape taxation. ‘Besides that, these two humble folk had nothing to tax. The man’s turban that protected his head from the sun was not worth taxing; the woman’s sandals which kept her feet from being cut by the limestone rock, of , which Bethlehem is mostly made up, were not worth taxing. No; the fact is that a proclamation had been made by fhe emperor that all the people between Great Britain and Parthia and of those lands included should go to some appointed place and give their names in, be registered and announce their loyalty to the Roman emperor. They stood up before the.officer of the government and answered the questions: “What is your name? Where were you born? Where do you live now? Uftyourhahd and swear that you will support the empire, of Caesar Augustus.” During that patriotic and loyal visit the first cry of the Divine Boy wds heard. They had .walked 80 miles over a rough road to give in their names and take the oath of allegiance. Would' we walk 80 miles to announce our allegiance to our King, one Jesus? Caesar

Augustus wanted to know by the record on which that naan and that woman WTOte their names, or had them written, just how’ many people in his empire he could depend on in case of exigency. How many men would unsheath sword for the Roman eagle, and how many women could be depended on to take care of the wounded on battlefields? The trouble is that in the kingdom of Christ we do not know how many can be depended on. There are so many men and women who never give in their names. They serve the Lord on the sly. In all our churches there are so many half and half disciples, so many one-third espousers. They rather think the Bible is true, at any rate parts of it, and they hope that somehow Christianity will disenthrall the nations. They stay away from church on communion days and hope when they have lived as long as they can in this world they can somehow sneak into Heaven. Ohi give in your names! Be registered on the church record down here and in, the Lamb's Book of Life up there. Let all the world know where you stand. If you have to go as far as Joseph and Mary walked, if you have to go 80 miles before you find just the right form of worship and just the right creed, start, in this modern December, as those villagers started in an ancient December, and amid the congratulations of church militant and church triumphant give in your names. It was while Joseph and Mary were on a visit of duty and obeying a reasonable command of Emperor Augustus that tfc^ star pointed to the place of nativity. Christ’s oratory was unlike anything that went before or came after. Even the criticism of the world said: “Never man spake like this man.” Dramatic? Why, He took up a child out of the audience and set him on a table, and by the embarrassed look of the child taught humility. He sen-t the prosecutors of a poor, sinful woman, blushing and confounded, out of the room by one sentence of sarcasm. Notice His power of emphasis, and enunciation when He revealed Himself after His Resurrection, by the peculiar way He pronounced the one word “Mary.” His power of look shown by the way Peter, the great apostle, wilted under it. The book says: 4 “The Lord turned and looked upon Peter.” It was an omnipotent facial expression. He looked

upon Peter. Power of distinct utterance, so that every one could hear. “He opened His mouth, saying.” No mumbling and indistinct utterance. He opened his mouth. His voice, which had been developed by open-air speaking, wa9 a resonant and sonorous voice, or He would not have taken the top of the rocks of the Mount of Beatitudes for a pulpit, for that pulpit is so high, as 1 declare tfom observation, that no speaker that I have ever known could have foom that point made any auI dience hear one word of a sermon. His power of hyperbole: A camel trying to crowd its hump through the I eye of a sewing woman’s needle and all that learned talk about a gate cal It'd the “needle’s eye,” only belit- ; tKng the hyperbole. Power of sarcasm: The hypocrite styled by Him “the whole who need not a physician.” His power of peroration: The crashj ing of the timbers of the poorly built hou«e on the beach of the Mediter* rancan. Power to take advantage of circumstances: When an auditor asked Him whether they ought to pay taxes to Caesar. Christ practically said: “If any gentleman in this audi- ! enee has in his pcfcket a Roman penI ny. 1 wish he would just hand it up i to Me.” And some one banded Him a t

iy, such as yon can now Had in 2ifne,of the museums, the obverse of it bearing- the face of Tiberius>/the emperor, and the reverse the words “Pontifex Maximus,” the other title of the emperor, and then cam^||ijt. overwhelming answer of ^hrist: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’*.” Magnetic and^m? grammatic this inspired peasant! Useless attempts he declares as “pearls cast before swine;” unimportant results He describes as the attempt to “gather figs of thistles.” Allegories! Why, the parables are all allegories, and how He flung them out upon His audiences, whole armfuls of amethysts and emeralds and diamonds and rubies! But we must not only look ai|lgi0r from a worldly standpoint. How He smote whirlwinds into silenctj^ and made the waves of the sea lie down, and opened doors of light into the midnight of those who had been born blind, and turned deaf ears into galleries of music, and with one touch made the scabs of incurable leprosy fall off, and renewed healthy circulation through severest paralysis, and made the dead girl waken and ask for her mother, and at His crucifixion pulled down the clouds until at 12 o’clock at noon it was as dark as 12' o’clock at night, and started an influence that will go on until the last desert will grows roses, and the last case of paresis take healthful brain, and the last illness become rubicund of cheek and robust of chest and bounding of foot, and the last pauper will get his palace, and the last sinner taken unto the bosom of a pardoning God! Where did all this start? In that cradle within sound of bleating sheep and bellowing cattle and amid rough bantering of herdsmen and camel drivers. WThat a low place to start for such great heights! O artists, turn your camera obscura on that village of Bethlehem! Take it all in—the wintry skies lowering, the flocks shivering in the chill air, Mary, the pale mother, and Jesus, the child. No wonder that l'aut Veronese and Quyp and Rubens and Tintoretto ainfcjCorreggio and Perugino and Ghirlandajo and Raphael put their best pencils in that scene. Lord God, by Thy gracious spirit, fix that Madonna in ail our souls! So these thoughts come in upon us at this gladdest part of the year.

Swing softly, bells, on Christmas morn, Wake not the King of Glory! Sip Swing soft and swift across the snow The old Judean story. So I have shown you the shadows and the sunshine of that Christie crhdl® of Bethlehem. In these Christian-Jimes I realize that there are many cradles under shadows. Oh, the story of empty cradles all tip and down the earth, in cabins and^n palaces! There are standing- in garrets or in storerooms cradles that will never rock again. “Rachel mourning for her children and will not be comforted because they are not.” But through all th§/ shadows break gleams of sunshine, as the clouds of the CbTistic cradle were cleft by glorious light. Escaped from the struggles through which we have all passed and must yet pass, those little onetiftook Heaven at one bound. Instead of an earthly career it is a Heavenly career, with capacities, with velocitit^ with opportunities beyond our corapyehension. Instead of celebrating on earth the Saviour's birth they stand ill the Saviour’s presence. Instead of the holiday celebrations of the old homestead it is to them eternal jubilee at a table where the angels of God are the cupbearers and' amid festivities that re-* sound with a laughter and* a music and blaze with a brilliance and a glory “that eye hath not seen nor ear heard.” No use in wishing them a merry Christmas, for the merriments of Heaven ring out upon them from temples that are always open, amid pleasures that never die. Oh, it is no| a dull Heaven, but a lively Heaven, for there are so many children there! They throng the streets; they look out of the “House of Many Mansions;” they stand on the beach to see the fleets cast anchor within the vale; they crowd the gates with^ greetings when the old folks come in; they clap their hands in an eternal gladness; they dance in an eternal glee. See you not the sunshine that pours into the shadows of that cradle until they are all gone? ? ^

But shadows have their uses. There must be a background to every good picture. Turner always put at least one flock of clouds on his canvas, and the clouds of earth will be the back* ground to bring out more mightily the brightness of Heaven. And will it not be glorious if after all this scene of earthly vicissitude we meet again in our Father’s house and talk over the ‘past in an everlasting holiday. But meanwhile look out for the cradles. How much they decide for this world and the next! When Wellington was born at kfornington, England, that decided Waterloo and saved -Europe. W’hen Handel was born in Halle, Saxony, that decided the oratorios of “Judas Maccabaeus” and “Esther” and “Israel in Egypt” and “Jeptbah” and “Messiah.” When Eli Whitney was born at West boro, that decided the wealth of all the cotton fields of the south. When Gutenberg was born at Metz, Germany, that decided the libraries of all Christendom. When Clarkson was born in Cambridgeshire. England, that decided the doom of human bondage. When Morse was born at Breed’s Hill, Mass., that decided that the lightnings of heaven should become galloping couriers or stretch a throbbing iron nerve clear under the sCa. When Washington was born at Westmoreland, Va.. that decided American independence. When Christ was born at Bethlehem, that decided the redemption of the world. Oh. look out for the cradles! May a Bethlehem star of hope point down to each one of them and every hovering cloud be filled wit* chanting angels of znercyr || ~