The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1886-11-26
" ritten tor the MONITOR.
LITTLE SERMONS.

BY J. NJ.
What man has all he wishes for has the
woe of safety, misery that touches
wings and mingles voices with the wee of
abjectest poverty. 1t is not in what we
get, and not always in what we use, but in
the striving, that the best gain and noble
ness lies In hands ever reaching after,
but never attaining, God puts divine
hunger that will never rest in its weary
seeking until it rests in eternal peace in
him. The ancents had good Wunsch.
or wish, and if he granted every wish be
was dreadful god, hiding curse behind
his smile of seeming blessing. But if lie
lead them unto himself, and was the soul s
noblest satisfaction, then was he a god
well worth the worshipping, a god who
allured through very disappointments and
vanishing promises unto the eternal need
satisfied, which is but the souls blossom.
#*#
When branch is grated into vine,
the vine is cut killed as it were, and in
that wound is the branch bound up unto
life. But when once united to -he vine the
life, not the death, of the vine, is the life of
the branch. Christ is the vine of eyerlast-
ing life and fruitfulness; His death is the
wound in which the sinner is grated into
Him; but His life is the power by which
the sinner glores along the lines of life in
to the fruit of holiness. Reconced by
death, but a living union with living
Christ is the power of holy life.
In grating a branch into vine, not
only is the vine cut but the branch as we'll.
| The soul has wound that answers the
wound of Jesus unto the union Of eternal
| life; and that is the wound that the knife
OF tho law intlicts; the knife of sacrifice in
giving up sin TO chose righteousness. But
what thus begins in sacrifice goes on in
gain, what begins in sorrow goes on in Joy,
what begins in death goes ON in life. And
the PURIFIED splendor Of perfected holiness
is Gods and The souls laughter dawning
for eternity out of the night of death.
| #*#
| Who has God before him always as de-
light is growing godlike and shall yet
know that perfection Of holiness that
makes God that high joy that sings at the
heart Of the universe.
Wilderness is happiness. A perfect
body makes a physical harmony. a per-
| feet mind makes mental harmony.
perfect soul makes a spiritual harmony.
We are being made and when we arrive at
our perfection all that has beclouded
| and saddened this life will have passed
away. God with the hand of His com
pleted making will wipe away all our tears.
No Sickness no sorrow, no pain, no death
is in heaven because there is no friction of
imperfect parts, because the glad and
eternal blossom has come up the way of
the gnared roots hidden in the dark soil
of the earth And he hastens heaven who
hastens in the faithful service Of Jesus.
x##
The leaves of the past drop and are not
caught in any fossil memory; and what
was great IN its day and generation be-
comes lost in the night of forgetfulness.
But what was then lives in what we to-
day are; and they who were then live in
Him whose life they were, out of whose
heart they grew and back into which
they went out of their mystery, and
seeking after the eternal reality. And SO
is the best for us And if in some fossil
leaf our names were preserved, it is little
but name. But living through the blood
and moral natures of those yet to be, aud
| living in the heart of God-surely this is
enough for quiet, faithful content, unfretted
by wasting reaching after the froth Of
a great name, empty as bubbles that look
| beautiful. but are nothing.
##*
Honor from the very grave of failure
rises phmnix-ike to wing ofimmortalty;
| but dishonor from the highest throne falls
into the loathsome grave of shame, like
Herod, who when worshipped as a god,
was smitien unto death with the loath-
some hand of disease.
~*x
All true service is kingly, all service,
self-forgettngly done FOR others; but cring
ing, cowardly, selfish service or service
that is busy at the beck of self has in it
mean and degrading devil.
~.
| Through the eyes OF my own offences
my brother is best judged. Thus looking
upon him, have charity for what is weak,
have double appreciation of what is
noble, seeing by what hard way it has
| come to its achievement.
| ~*x
| 1t is home that determines the man.
80
| Gid an asses head with gold, and a
| crowd will stand in gaping wonder filling
the air with its chanted praises, but let the
gold be stripped from shat admired head
and the same crowd will kick the poor Eel
| low TO DEATH