Pike County Democrat, Volume 31, Number 7, Petersburg, Pike County, 22 June 1900 — Page 7

Items of Interest from the Capital City on Current Events of Political Import.

REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION BLUNDERS The Rale •( den. Otle la the Philippine* a Rank Failure—Corruption Unearthed by Kew Civil ContmlB- ■ lou—Concreai to Be Whitewashed —Democrats United. [Special Correspondence.] Gen. Otis is back from the Philip* pines and is having himself interviewed to the effect that he bus crushed the insurrection in the islands and left everything on a peace footing. His ignorance of the situation may be pardoned from the fact that he conducted his campaign from the depths of his armchair in the palace at Manila. His mind appears to be not altogether easy as to the quality of the peace that he left behind, because he admitted, reluctantly, that we could not 6pare any of our 70,000 from the islands in case of trouble with China, because “an army of suppression” would be needed in the Philippines for several years to come. Gen. Otis was received at the white house with great cordiality, and he ought to be. for has he not been the faithful servant of the administration all these months? Has he not done what President McKinley has ordered? Has he not suppressed any news that the administration thought disquieting? Has he not censored the reports so that it was impossible to discover how many lives were being sacrificed and hpw much money was being spent in this attempt to crush a people wrh© only desire an opportunity to govern themselves in their own- way ? Indeed, Gen. Otis has been a loyal servant of a blundering administration, and the abuse which has sometimes been heaped upon Otis should in justice have been meted out to his master in the white house who directed the Philippine war. Now that Gen. Otis is back, his optimistic statements will be used by the republicans as campaign material. That they are not true will not matter to the republican leaders. On their Side the campaign is to be proseteuted with promises for the future and evasion and misrepresentation, in order to conceal anything which might damage McKinley’s chances of reelection.

Otla a Rank Failure. In sharp contrast to Gen. Otis’ selfsufficient claim of haring- put down the rebellion in the Philippines comes the wail from the new civil commission which recently landed in the islands. Judge Taft and his colleagues on the commission are assured by high army officers that the present force in the islands is utterly inadequate to suppress the insurrection; that even in the southern portion of Luzon the insurgents are in entire control. Gen. Otis’ municipal governments have been a rank failure. They have simply been used by the Filipinos as recruiting stations for the insurgents. ' The commission has been in Luzon a week and up to this time not a single Filipino has approached them with an offer of surrender or submission on any terms. The commission is simply amazed at ihe conditions of bribery, corruption andi general rascality which prevail wherever the Americans have left their., trail. The Cuban frauds are nothing to the corruption which has been going on in the Philippines. - The Filipinos have had so bitter an experience with imperialism that they propose to hold out at least until after the fall elections. If McKinley is reelected. they know they may expect a condition of servitude worse than Spain ever dared to impose, and they will keep up their guerrilla warfare indefinitely. If Bryan is elected they have some hope of being allowed to gpvern themselves and receiving the protection which should be given them by a country which professes respect for the principles of liberty and independence on which its own institutions are founded. The new civil commission is giving the people a glimpse of the facts. Otis misrepresents everything, from the condition of the Filipinos to the cost of our war of extermination. General Corruption. The more the Cuban affair is probed the more clear ft becomes that the pos- „ tal frauds are only a small part of the general corruption which has become rampant under military control of the island. The administration is looking surprised and grieved and* ordering prompt investigation and retrenchment in the postal department, hoping by that ruse to keep the country in ignorance of the frauds in other directions. If .there could be a searching investigation into the amount of money disbursed by the military authorities, under the pretext of administering Havana and improving the sanitary condition, the result would shock the average voter. While the administration and its2 henchmen pretend to know nothing of the irregularities in various directions in Cuba yet information comes from those on the ground indicating that the postal frauds are a mere bagatelle compared to what has been looted in other directions. President McKinley’s oft-repeated aphprism about being the instrument of Vidence is paraphrased by certain offie* \in Cuba to read: “Providence is in V ye’re in it and there’s money in it.**y| \>a for the past year has been rega N3 as a promising place for administrv \ favorites who desired to reap*an , >dant harvest.

Is the face of all this the republican platform will congratulate President McKinley upon his able and wise administration and point out to the ! Cubans how lucky they are to be re- j leased from Spanish oppression. Will Whlttwaik CongrtMk

With congress out of the way the republicans are busily preparing for their national convention and for the platform which shall carefully gloss over the shortcomings of the recent congress. It will deal largely in promises. A number of measures like the anti-trust bill, the Nicaragua canal bill and the eight-hour bill were purposely put through the house and held up in the senate so that they would serve as hooks on which to hang promises. For instance the people will be promised that trusts will be restrained if the republican party is returned ,to power. At the same time the trusts will be assessed because Mark Hanna has considerately looked after them and prevented any legislation which might embarrass them. Twenty such examples of “striker” legislation might be cited. It is expected, however, by the republican leaders that the voters will be completely fooled by this clever ruse. Democrat* United. The democratic convention at Kansas Cit \\ on the other hand, will voice the protest of the people against the republican lawlessness, extravagance and‘ recklessness. Democrats all over the country stand united for a campaign of principle. They are attracting to the party every voter who wants a constitutional government as opposed to imperialism and militarism. They are attracting those who want an honest and impartial administration of the laws,- as contrasted with the flagrant abuses and violations of law which have- characterized this administration. ADOLPH PATTERSON. THE CUBAN POSTAL STEAL. Hanna Morally the Principal Culprit Under the Powers at Wa«hIngten.

lhe scandals in connection with the establishment of a postal system in Cuba are not surprising, when considered in the light of the character of the men who caused them, their antecedents and the temptation to which they were exposed. It is plain they were sent to Cuba as a reward for their political services to the administration, and that they, understood they were to make what they couldi out of their positions. They took their unwritten instructions too literally; and instead of tilling their pockets discreetly and quietly, they inaugurated a species of orgie, grabbed everything in sight, and consequently. when the exposure came the administration was shocked, and perhaps the chances of the McKinley reelection jeopardized. Mr. Hanna is no doubt morally the principal culprit. Years ago—in fact, from the time of the establishment of the political firm or syndicate of Hanna & McKinley—Mr. Perry Heath, assistant postmaster general, has been in Mr. Hanna's employ. He has been an editor aud correspondent of newspapers in his interest, and when Mr. McKinle}' was nominated for president four years ago had charge of his campaign in Indiana, and, acting under Hanna's instructions, carried the state for him. When the president formed his cabinet Mr. Gary was made postmaster general and Heath his first assistant. It did not take very long j for the assistant, backed by Hanna and the president, to force his chief to resign. Mr. Charles Emory Smith succeeded Mr. Gary, with the understanding that Heath was not to be interfered with, Acting under Heath, as Heath acted under Hanna, in the scheme of plunder^politics, were Neely and ltathbone, and through Heath’s influence they were given important positions in the post office department. The establishment of a postal system in Cuba, a temporary dependency of the government, and among a people who did not understand the English language or .American business methods, was the opportunity for which these friends of the administration and servitors of Hanna and* the president had waited and hoped.' Neely was appointed treasurer and general manager of the postal system on the part of the government, and he and his confederates wasted no time in getting to work. If they had not been detected by the military authorities and checked in their operations before they got fairly started there is no telling how much they would have stolen. As it is, they got away with hundreds of thousands of dollars. . The United States occupies a peculiar position in relation to Cuba. In the face of the world, it became the guardian of the untaught and inexperienced people of the island. It exercised supreme authority over them. It undertook to instruct them in the methods of government by the people and for the people—to start them in the way of managing their public affairs peacefully, honestly and in accordance with law. The administration and the men by whom it is surrounded and controlled have so quitted themselves of these national obligations by unloading a gang of thieves upon them, and not only robbing them and making them suspicious of a republican form of government, but at the same time fixing a stigma and burning disgrace upon their own government.—KansasjCity^Inde pendent. «-Western labor has condemned McKinley for the part he had in the Coeur d'Alene affair. Now it remains to be seen if the western laborers will vote at the polls as they vote in their conventions. If they do it will be a sad day> for McKinley.—Butte (Mont.) Miner.

A BIG DIFFERENCE. H*w tkt Parmer Hu Fared Stare the Bealaaia* of the MeKlaley ▲dmlnlatratlea.

A republican organ declares that the price of farm machinery, etc., is the same as in 1896. Let us see about this. The fact is that the manufacturers have raised the price to the jobber, the jobber has raised the price to the retailer, and the retailer has raised the price to the consumer. This increase in price is dtae to the increased price of raw material, which is mostly iron and protected by the infamous tariff which permits the iron producers to rob the American people at their own sweet wilL Retail prices vary according to the willingness of retailers to make little profits or their desire to make large profits. For that reason it is impossible to quote retail prices on farm machinery, but it is easy to get the wholesale prices. In 1896 a three-inch box brake Weber wagon, standard goods the world over, was sold to the retailer at $48. To-day that same wagon costs the retailer $56, an increase of 16 2-3 per cent, to the retailer. Investigation will disclose the fact that because of lower discounts and shorter time this percentage is increased to the consumer. The same fact will hold good in further quotations of farm machinery. In 1896 a Kingman Silver buggy, standard goods the world over, cost the jobber $52. Today he pays $55, which increase is put upon the retailer and by the retailer put upon the consumer. In 18% a Stamboul cultivator, a standard piece of machinery, cost the jobber $12. Today it costs him $14.50, an increase of over 20 per cent. Will these republican organs ask us to believe that the retailer absorbs this increase and continues to sell the Stamboul cultivator at the same price he sold it for in 1S%? In 1896 a disc harrow cost the jobber $23. The same harrow costs the jobber to-day an increase of over 15 per cent. Of course the jobber must add this to the price he charges the retailer, ana the retailer must add it to the prices charged the farmer. The cost of the iron in a common buggy—the raw iron*—is $2.65 more than it was in 1896. The farmer pays from 15 to 150 per cent, more for everything he buys now than he paid in 1896, for clothing, groceries, farm machinery, farm supplies, for all the little luxuries of life and for all the great necessaries of life. No republican organ dare print in parallel columns'the price of all commodities in 1S96 and in 1900. To do so would be to prove that the farmer is getting the worst of it on all sides—that while he is better off today than in 1S96 he has not profited in proportion with the protected trust

barons. Interest charges are lower now than in 1896, but is the farmer better able to pay the lower interest when the price of what he sells has increased 13 per cent, and the price of what he buys increased from 15 to 150 per cent,, the average increase being 82ys per cent? With, the increase woefully on the side of the trusts and against the farmer is he better able to pay the decreased interest now than he was the larger interest in 1896? The whole question resolves itseli thusly: 1^ it justice to the farmer when the priee of his products increases 13 per cent, and the prices of all he must buy increases S5 per cent?I Would the jfarmer be better off if the price of what he has to buy were only increased the same per ceiigt. as the products h|e has to soil? If tne fanner is better off by reason of an increase of 13 per cent, in the priee of his products, would he not be about six times better off if he received the same increase as the tariff barons receive through favored legislation and political chicanery? And is not the farmer as much entitled td bo per cent, increase as the tariff baron? The World-Herald challenges the republican organs to quote comparative prices in 1896 and 1900 of all products the farmer raises and all products the farmer must buy.—Omaha World-Her-ald. COMMENTS OF THE PRESS. -Up to date McKinley’s imperialism in the Philippines has cost the people of the United States $159,000,000 and 6,000 lives of brave American soldiers.—Chicago Democrat. -It enrages republicans to realize at this critical moment how much imperialism has had to do with strengthening the American alignment under the democratic standard.—St. Louis Bepublic. -The republican party will not repeal the special stamp taxes which are sx> odious and the source of so much inconvenience simply because it desires to collect as much money as possible between now and the end of the presidential campaign in order that it may beast of the enormous surplus that has been* acquired during McKinley’s administration. — Atlanta Journal. ' -There is one practical way of getting at the trusts which the republicans show no disposition to adopt, although they co-uld have enacted remedial legislation at any time during Mr. McKinley’s administration. All that is necessary to hit many of the monopolies in a vital spot is the removal of tariff protection from all trusts which have a monopoly of their products.—Baltimore Sun. -As republican prosperity orations continue to be punctuated by the dull, sickening thud of the stock market falling into the basement it is possible that Mr. McKinley may deem it advisable to order his earnest followers to stop talking prosperity and devote themselves to the discussion of the weather or some other similarly innocuous topic. A prosperity which doesn’t prosper the Wall street gambler is a failure from a republican point of view.—Chicago Chronicle.

CUBE FOB ANXIETY. Dr. Talmage Prescribes Isr Those in Trouble.

A4t1*ci ThrM to Follow the Extoylc ef the Disciples, Who “V»t ut Told Jnmi”—Comfort for the Bereaved. [Copyright, 1900. by Louis Klopsch.] Washington. June IT. Dr. Talmage, who has finished his tour of England and Scotland, where thousands thronged to hear him wheresoever he preached, is now on his way to Norway and Russia, in which countries he is already well known through the publication of translations of his sermons. In the following discourse, which he has sent for publication this week, he gives a prescription for all anxiety and worriment and illustrates the Divine sympathy for all who are in any kind of struggle. The text is Matthew 14, 12: “And His disciples went and told Jesus.” An outrageous assassination had just taken place. To appease a revengeful woman King- Herod ordered the death of that noble, self sacrificing prophet, John the Baptist. The group of the disciples were thrown into grief and dismay. They felt themselves utterly defenseless. There was no authority to which they could appeal, and yet grief must always find expression. If there be no human ear to hear it, then the agonized soul will cry it aloud to the winds and the woods and the waters. But there was an ear that' was willing to listen. There is a tender pathos and at the same time a most admirable picture in the words of my text: “They went and told Jesus.” He could understand all their grief, and He immediately soothed it. Our burdens are not more than half so heavy to carry if another shoulder is put under the other end of them. Here we find . Christ, His brow shadowed with grief, standing amid the group of disciples, who, with tears and violent gesticulations and wringing of hands and outcry of bereavement, are expressing their woe. Raphael, with his skilled brush putting upon the wall of a palace some scene of sacred story, gave not so skillful a stroke as when the plain hand of the evangelist writes: “They went and told Jesps.” The old Goths and Vandals once came down upon Italy from the north of Europe, and they upset fhe gardens, and they broke down the statues and swept away everything that was good and beautiful. So there is ever and anon in the history of all the

sons and daughters of our race an incursion of rough-handed troubles that come to plunder and ransack and put to the torch all that men highly prize. There is no cave so deeply cleft into the mountains as to afford ns shelter, and the foot of fleetest courser cannot bear us beyond pursuit. The arrows they put to the string fly with unerring dart until we fall pierced and stunned. I feel that I bring to you a most appropriate message. I mean to bind up all your griefs into a bundle and set them on fire with a spark from God’s altar. The prescription that feured the sorrow of the disciples will cure all your heartaches. I have read that when Godfrey and his army marched out to capture Jerusalem, as they came over the hills, at the first flash of the pinnacles of that beautiful city, the army that had marched in silence lifted a shout that made the earth tremble. Oh, you soldier^ of Jesus Christ, marching on toward Heaven, I would that to-day, by some gleam from the palace of God’s mercy and God’s strength, you might ' be lifted into great rejoicing, and that as the prospect of its peace breaks on your enraptured gaze you might raise one glad hosanna to the Lord! In the first place, I commend the behavior of these disciples to all burdened souls who are unpardoned. There comes a time in almost every man’s history when he feels from some source that he has an erring nature. The thought may not have such heft as to fell him. It may be only nke the flash in an evening cloud just after a very hot summer day. One S man to get rid of that impression will, go to prayer, while another will stimulate himself by ardent spirits, and another man will dive deeper in secularises. But sometimes a man cannot get rid of these impressions. The fact is, when a man finds out that his eternity is poised upon a perfect uncertainty and that the next moment his foot may slip, he must do something violent to make himself forget where he stands or else fly for refuge. Some of you crouch under a yoke, and you bite the dust, when this moment you might rise up a* crowned conqueror. Driven and perplexed as you have been by six, go and tell Jesus. To relax the grip of death from your soul and plant your unshackled feet upon the golden throne, Christ let the tortures of the bloody mount transfix Him. With the beam of His own cross He will break down the door of your dungeon. From the thorns of His own crown He will pick enough, gems to make your brow blaze with eternal victory. In every tear on His wet cheek, in every gash of His aide, in every long, blackening mark of laceration from shoulder to shoulder, in the grave-shattering, Heavenshattering death groan, I hear Him say: “Him that cometh’ unto me I will in nowise cast out.” “Oh,” but you say, “instead of curing my wound, you want to make another wound—namely, that of conviction!” Have you never known a surgeon to come and find a chronic disease 6nd then with sharp caustic burn it all out? So the grace of God comes to the old sore of sin. At has long

been rankling there, but by Divine grace it is burned out through these fires of conviction, “the flush coming again as the flesh of a 1 title child,** “where sin abounded grace much more aboundeth.** With nhe 10,000 unpardoned sins of your if e, go and

tell Jesus. You will never get lid <1 your sins in any other way. And remember that the broad invitation v iich I extend to you will not alv ays be extended. King Alfred, before modern timepieces were invented, used to divide the day into three 4trts, eight hours each, and then hau three wax candles. By the time the first candle had burned to the socket eight hours had gone, and when the second candle had burned to the socket another eight hours had gone, and when all the three candles were gtma out then the day had passed. Oh, that some of us, instead of calculating our days and nights and years by any earthly timepiece, might calcuk e them by the numbers of opportunities and mercies which are burning down andr burning out, never to be r. lighted, lest at last we be amid the ft olish virgins who cried: “Our lamps have gone out!” Again I commend the '\iehavior of the disciples to all who ate tempted. I have heard men in mid ^fe say they had never been led into,/ temptation. If you have not felt ten/; station, it is because, you have no/ tried to do right. A man hopplgcHm- .handcuffed, as long as he lies^juietly, does not test the pqjvcr of-fne chain, hut when he rises up and with determination resolves to snap the handcuffs or break the hopple, then he finds the power of the iron. And there are men who have been for ten and twenty and thirty years bound hand and foot by evil habits who have never fill; the power of the chain because they have never tried to break it. It is very easy to go on down with the stream and with the wind lying on your oars, but just turn around and try to go against the wind and the tide, and you. will find it is a different matter. As long as we go down the current of our evil habit we seem to get along qui e smoothly, but if after awhile we ; urn around and head the other way, to ward Christ and pardon and Heaven, ch, then how we have to lay to the oars! You will have your temptation. You have one kind, you another, you another, not one person escaping.

It is ail folly for you to say to some one: “I could' not be tempted as you are.” The lion thinks i-; : s so strange that the fish should be eaughf with a hook. The fish thinks it is so strange that the lion should be caught with a trap. You see some man with a cold, phlegmatic temperament, and •you say: “I suppose that man has not any temptation.” Yes, as much asyou have. In his phlegmatic nature he has a temptation to indolence and censoriousness and overeating and drinking, a temptation to ignore the great work of life,^ temptation to lay down an obstacle in the- way of all good enterprises. The temperament decides the styles of temptation, but sanguine or lymphatic, you will have temptation. Satan has a grappling hook just fitted for you; soul. A man never lives beyond the reach of temptation. You say when a man gets to be 70 or 80 years of age he is safe from satanic assault. You are very much 'mistaken. A man at 83 yea>s of age has as many temptations as& man of 25. They are only different styles of temptation. Ask the aged Christian whether he is never assaulted of the powers of darkness. If you think you have conquered the power of temptation, you are very much mistaken. No man gets through life without having a pommeling. Some slander comes after you, horned and husked and hoofed, to gore and trample you. And what are you, to lo? I tell you plainly that all who serve Christ must suffer persecution. It is the worst sign in the world for you to be able to say: “I have not an enemy in the world.” A woe is proaounced in the Bible against the one of whom everybody speaks well. If yen are at peace with all the world and everybody-likes you and approves your work, it is because you are an idler in the Lord’s vineyard and are not doing your duty. All those who have served Christ, however5 eminent, all have been maltreated at some stage of their experience. You know it was so in the time of George Whitofield, when he stood and invited mer. into the kingdom of God. What slid the learned Dr. Johnson say of him? He pronounced him a miserable mountebank. How was it when Roaert Hall stood and spoke as scarcely any uninspired man ever did speak of the glories of Heaven? And as he stood Sabbath after Sabbath preaching on these themes his face .kindled with glory. John Foster, a Christian man, said of this man: “Robert Hall is only acting, and the smile on his face is a reflection of his own vanity.” John Wesley turned all England upside down with Christian reform, and yet the punsters were after him, and the meanest jokes iu England were perpetrated about John Wesley. What is true of the pulpit is true of the pew; it is true of the street; it is true of the shop and the store. All who will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution. And I set it down as the very worst sign in all your Christian experience if you are, any of you^ at peace with all the world. The religion of Christ is war. It is a challenge to “the world, the flesh and the devil,” =.nd if you will buckle on the whole tu mor of God you will find a great host disputing your path between this and Heaven. But what are you ro do when you are assaulted and slandered and abused, as I suppose nearly all of you have been in your life? Go out and hunt up the slanderer? Oh, no, silly rqan! While you are explaining away a falsehood in one place 50 people will

just have heard of it In other places. I counsel you to another ; course. While yon are not to omit any opportunity of setting yourselves right, I want to tell you of one who had tha hardest things said about him, whose sobriety was disputed, whose mission was scouted, .whose companionship was denounced, who was Dursued as

a babe and spit upon as a man, who was howled at after he was dead. I will have you go unto Him with your humble child prayer, saying: “I see Thy wounds—wounds of head, wounds of feet, wounds of heart. Now, look at my wounds and see what I have suffered and through what battles I am going, anu I entreat Thee by those wounds of Thine to sympathize with me.” And He will sympathize, and He will help. Go and tell Jesus. ~ Again, I commend the behavior Of the disciples to all the bereaved. How many in garb of mourning? How many emblems of sorrow you behold1 everywhere? God has His own way of taking apart a family. We must get out of the way for coming generations. We must get off the stage that others may come on, and for this reason there is a long procession reaching down all the time into the valley of shadows. This emigration from time into eternity is so vast an enterprise that we cannot j understand it. Every hour we hear the i clang of the sepulchral gate. The sod j must be broken. The ground must be plowed for resurrection harvest. Eternity must be peopled. The dust must l$ress our eyelids. “It is appointed unto all men once to die.” This emigration from time into eternity keeps three-fourths of the families of the earth in desolation. The 3ir is rent with farewells, and the black taseled vehicles of death rumble through every street. The botly of the child that was folded so closely to the mother’s heart is put away in the cold and the darkness. The laughter freezes to the girl’s lip, and the rose scatters. The boy in the harvest field of Shunem says: “My head! My .head! ” And they carry him home to die on the lap of his mother. Widowhood' stands with tragedies of woe struck into the pallor of the cheek. Orphanag* cries in vain for father and mother. Oh. the grave is cruel! With teeth of stone it clutches for its prey. Between the closing gates of the sepulcher our hearts are mangled and crushed.

Is there any earthly solace? Xone. We come to the obsequies, we sit with the grief stricken, we taik pathetically to their sop I; but soon the obsequies have passed, the carriages have left us at the door, the friends who staid for a few days are gone, and the heart sits in desolation listening, for the little feet that will never again patter through the hall, or looking for the entrance of those who will never come again—sighing into the darkness—ever and anon coining across some book or garment or little shoe or picture that arouses former association, almost killing the heart. Long days and flights of suffering that, wear out the spirit and expunge the bright lines of life and give haggardness to the face and draw the flesh tight down over the cheek bone and draw dark lines under the sunken eye. and the hand is tremulous, and the voice is husky and uncertain, and the grief is wearing, grinding, accumulating. exhausting. Xow. what are such to do?~ Are they merely to look up into a brazen and un« pitying sky? Are they to walk a blasted heath unfed of stream, unsheltered by overarching trees? Has God turned us out on the barren common to die? Oh.no! no! no! He lias not. He comes 1 with sympathy and kindness and love. He understands all our grief. He sees the height and depth and the length and the breadth of it. He is the only one that can fully sympathize. Go and tell Jesus. Sometimes when >ve have trouble we go to our-friends and we explain it, and they' try to sympathize; but they do not understand it. They cannot understand it. But Christ sees all over it and all through it. lie not rnly counts the tears and records the groans, but before the tears started, before the groans began Christ saw the inmost hiding place of your sorrow, and He takes it, and He weighs it, and He measures it. and He pities it with an all absorbing pity. Bone of our bone. Flesh of our flesh. Heart of our heart. Sorrow of our sorrow. As long as He remembers Lazarus’ grave He will stand by you in the cemetery. As long as Hq remembers His own heartbreak „ He will stand by you in the laceration of your affections. When He forgets the footsore way, the sleepless nights, the weary body, the exhausted mind, the awful cross, the solemn grave, then He will forget you, but not until then. Often when we were in trouble we sent for our friends, but they were far away; they cou^ct not get to us. We wrote to them: ‘'Come right away,” or telegraphed: “Take the next train.** They came at last, yet were a great while in coming or perhaps were too late. But Christ is always near—before you, behind you, within you. No mother ever threw her arms around her child with such warmth and ecstasy of affection as Christ has shown toward you. Close hand—nearer than the staff upon which you lean, nearer than the cup you put to your lip, nearer than the handkerchief with which you wipe away your tears—I preach Him an ever present, all sympathizing, compassionate Jesus. How can you stay away one moment from Him with your griefs? Go now. Go and tell Jesus. It is often that our friends have no power to relieve us. They would very much like to do it, but they cannot disentangle our finances, they cannot curs our sickness and raise our dead, but glory be to God that He to whom the disciples went has all the power in Heaven and on earth, and at our call He will balk our calamities and at just the right time in the presence of an applauding earth and a resounding Heaven will raise our -dead. He is mightier than Herod. He is swifter than the storm. He is grandei r* an the sea. He is vaster than eternity.