The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1886-04-16
LITTLE SERMONS.

BY 4. NJ.
! No more certain than the fact that there
/ is an east and a west. is the fact that there
is a good ant bad. fixed by the decree Il
| right. by the will of God. And this is The
fact that divides men to-day by fissure
cracking down through and off through
destiny, SO small now that only keen eyes
see it, but i,y-and-by widening and rendine
! into the gulf fixed over which there is no
/ crossing A good man and bad man are
travelling with their backs to each other
They can never come together, unless the
bad retraces his way And whatever OF
religion or 10 religion we hold we are all
living out a destiny born Of this fact. This
is verify, whatever else RAY be uneei-
tain; and the good are the happy and the
bad are the unhappy; the good are the
noble the bad. the ignoble Goodness is
the-true beauty; and to go out into the
unknown hand III hand with good can have
no terrors, can have no defeats, can have
no unhappinesses. But to 60 out hand in
hand with bad, the cheek blanehes. the
courage waivers, and the very night Of
nothing. if that be What death is, falls
with a scourge; but if death be night Of
something, then the bad begins the new
existence bankrupt in the gloomy prison
of his own selfishress. To die nobly into
nothing is worth everything. To die ig-
nobly into nothing is not worth the glitter
ing baubles Of all the world And then il
we all die not into nothing but into some
thing. goodness has won and badness has
lost
Tears will not cement together the
broken pitcher. but time economical from
weeping viii buy a new one.
###
To lift the clouds Of ignorance from the
hearts Of men that they may see the glory
of Gods love in the face Of Jesus, is a
work next glorious to that Of dying for the
world. 1t is like lifting the screen from
the camera, and 10 Gods image is pic
rured forever in the soul Of man; and
henceforth he is Gods realized child
What work so beautiful and thrilled Of joy
as To bring Father and prcdigal face to
face, and healing forever the home wouna
that otherwise cannot be hcaled-thc home
wound 81 heaven, of Gods heart
x##
That merry child, To-day. laughs and
plays by the grave Of the dead Yesterday,
as ii there was No death and it was an
eternal glad now And VIC play with it.
forgetting that our grave has been dug ia
the purpose OF God, that we must pay the
final debt of all the living forgetting that
all play to-day makes all work tomorrow.
Each moral conquest is but the vantage
ground from which new conqnests arc 10
be won. Each beam Of truth that falls into
the mind is but lamp to light our foot
steps toward the dawn Of an infinite day.
Progress never follows, but always leads,
and will lead forever all who follow mr
command Up and on is our destiny, ny
/ and on III an infinite rest in an infinite Is
/ Dor; up and on towards the eternalIy mr.
att.inable which with each new step show
1
Nober and nobler, with joy deepening into
joy, bat never attaining the final noble
ness, never laughing IN the final joy that
is the life Of tie upward progress e good
ness.
#*#
All the outward imaging THAT God
needs he has carved with the hand Of his
own thought in creation, and LET walk IN
glorious sadness from the manager to the
cross. His honor is moi III any marble
image man can carve, but in the breath Of
his life as it tides through his creation
breaking into blossoms OF beauty in inf
mite variety; in the heart Of his foreising
love tiding through humanity and break
ing through character into the blossom Of
the beauty OF holiness.