Litchfield enquirer., 1862-01-16
SHORT SERMONS. BY A LAYMAN.-No. TWELVE.
ON TAKING TIME.

BY A LAYMAS-No. TWELVE. ON TAKING TIME.
 1EYT-s Take Time 6v the Foreloek" Mr RESPECTED HEARERS If you were to look your too much neglected Bibles and Prayer Books through and through, you might not find my text-but it can't do you any harm to search for it. You may find something else as good, or great deal better. You know men digging for coal or copper, sometimes find soap-stone, or si- yer, or gold, or even NICKEL. Aro not great 1 fortunes thus sometimes suddenly made? But to return to my Text. Some preachers will take a text and begin as though they knew just what to say, and you feel as if you were now going to hear something capital; but all at once you see the preacher is out of soundings. And 30 he founders along through an introduction as long as an Iceland winter, and about as cold gets his ideas all mixed up-and goes on hesita- ting, and hemming, and having and boggling, till he don't know whither he is driving, nor you neither
 But as I was going to say, like to have a preacher come right to the point first tell you what he uants to do, and then do it. Now to proceed with my subject You young man away there by the door, eating peanuts, l am sorry to have to speak to you, but it is very un. becoming to bring such things here, and shows very triaing, hardened and uncivilized mind to be eating them during sermon, and scattering the shucks about the floor. You may depend the sexton will inquire who you are when he comes to sweep out He's looking at you now. Besides, it diverts the peoples attention from the ubject, my having to speak to you in this manner.
 You will now please, my respected hearers, to attend to the Text. Take Time by the Fore lock-"
 You've all heard of the old Puritan people who used to live in England many years ago and some of them came over and settled in this country when it was all woods. And they do say that there few of their descendants left, nice, pious, honest people, but little stiff in their notions, to be sure. I expect there is a streak of their blood in my veins.
 We'll, aa was going to observe-these old Pu- ritans had some grand ideas, and they knew how to enforce them. Sometimes tley did it in pri- vate by the rod, and sometimes in public by the whipping post and stocks. An my brethren, those staunch, rigid old men were a terror to evil doers. But there was ore mildcr way in which they sought to put things straight, and keep them so. It was by the use of pictures. They used to illustrate facts by wood cuts--and these were sometimes arfaAy inpressiue-as for instance, the picture of John Rogers a burn ing, with his wife and nine or ten small children, in the New England Primer" You've all seen the pietorias of the present day-claimed to be lfe-ike-those Generals, and Colonels and Commanders, and battle -scenes-but all mere fancy work-and how dull, and vapid, and uninstructive, compared with that striking and almost speaking likeness of Time in the Primer ! My brethren, there you see Time to some pur- pose-his tools and his work-an hour-glass in one hand, and scyths in the other; and oh, how he strides alongl In come copies he is pictured out with wings. don't know but there is where my old teacher, Dominic M. got his Latin motto 7e1,pus f,tgit. He was always a repeating of it to us boys; and he said, (now l remember,) he said it meant Time 1aies-and solemn words they are. But it seems as if Time could speak. Just look a-here, says he. Do you see this glass? Faint liquor, says he-and ah my friends, for matter of that, it needn't be. There's liquor enough to be had in these parts, so I'm told, and more than enough for your good, o ye .tipplers and by the way-Tve heard it said since came among you, that only two or three years ago, some of the soldiest men about here declared, and passed vote, that though they would not prosecute the liquor- dealers up to that time, yet they would put the law in force in the strictest way, from that day forth But must not dwell.
 That Glass which Time holds up so tempting, or rather so alarming--why, there's nothing in it but sand-mere sand running to and fro, and re- minding us in the words of the poet, that ''As runs the glass, Mans life doth pass
 And then that Scythe,-long, sharp, warrant ted to cut,-What swath of human vegetation Time can shear of at a blow. Dye hardhacks, and charlocks, long standing and growing, and almost gone to seed in the meadow of probation tremble, lest the next clip of :he Ancient Mower should cut you of. Ye rich men, and ye poor men,-ye proud men, and ye base men, Pause and reflect on the inspired lines
 Time cut down all,
 1 Both great and small.
 An yes eh Take Time by the f,relock, and avert the impending stroke. Just look at him in the Picture. ;;
 If you hain't got Primer, pray go around the corner and buy one Riverius has them, ol ought to have them among his Holiday and New years presents,-aud very timely for the season they are. There,--Look,--whata study for { painter, or any other sinner Mr.-Late to-meetinf bought one month ago, and it has made a, early man of him. You don't hear his boot
 creakiug along up the aisle now in preachin.
 time. He loaned the picture to his neighbor- Esq. Priggins, well-todo bachelor of forty
 five wears an unexceptionable head of haiI the Snuire dnes on1y it isn't natural and ius