Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1886-08-02
Seli9ioms department.
A NEW HEAVEN AND A
NEW EARTH.

The angels who heralded the Child
of Bethlehem, saw the dawning of
new day. The result was not
brought about immediately; but it
was initiated. The tide began to
turn. The prevailing winds were
changed. Rapacity, lust, cruelty,
the evils hitherto rampant, were now
to slowly to retire. The kingdom of
righteousness and peace was begun.
The progress was comparatively
slow and unmarked. Natures great
est forces work silently. Sometimes
reactions set in which threatened for
the moment to reinstate the past.
Later the evil currents have stayed,
and the sun shines clearer than before.
This has been the history of the
Christian Church. Her triumph is
now complete; and yet there are
many evil forces already extinct or
dying. The prisons of the 1nquisl-
ton are vacant. The heather
statue of Liberty is better than the
Bastile. Our latest historians revel
state of society not at all fattering
to the morals of sundry of our Amer
lean fathers. When the first for
eign missionaries set sail the neigh
boring ministers chad pressing en-
gagements elsewhere" or, in other
words were ashamed to be seen in
their company. Present temperance
workers would not care to distribute
some of the tracts which were first
issued against intemperance in this
country, and which taught the pro-
'priety and healthfulness of moderate
drinking. Probably the Presbyter-
ian Board of Publication does not
not now sell it's catechisms which
were printed and adapted for use
among the slaves.
We now look upon these things as
men gaze upon traces of the dodo,
which has become extinct in our age.
We trust that some other evils, which
may be named, will soon pass
through this experience of decay.
The day will surely come when men
will recall the fact of our licensed sa-
looms and shameless dramas with
the establishment one feels in looking
upon the huge skeleton of some geol-
ogic monster. Meanwhile those in
situations and those are to endure
and develop in what is highest and
best, which are in accord, or will
put themselves in accord, with the
new order of things. 1t is the day
of Gods power. That which oppo-
ses will not endure the clearing of
moral atmosphere.
Already we are putting many
books once popular away upon for
cotton shelves. Who reads the
works of the infdels in the last two
centuries? Professor Cairns, in his
"History of Unbelief," records the
difficulty he had in securing for ref
erence copies of those books whose
authors are known to us, if at all,
by their names alone. 1t is lesson
which the world has already partial
ly learned, and which authors, as
also all others who would seek en-
during fame, should consider well
their aim can only be accomplished
by working in line with God truth.
The day will come when all reputa-
ton other than that which is thus
secured will fail, or be puffed away
as noxious air. The day is coming
when only that which is pure, is
Christ-like, will survive. The moral
temperature is to become more and
more unfavorable for the existence
of those creatures which belong tc
the ice-period of human history
There is to be "a new heaven and a
new earth wherein shall dwell right
eousness." God speed the day!