News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1890-11-27

manhood sermon he said, Behold the
fowls of the air." In Nazareth and on
the road to it there are a great many
camels. | see them now i'll memory
making their slow way up the zigzag
road from the plain of Esdraelon to
! Nazareth Familiar was Christ with
| their appearance, also with that small
| insect, the gnat. which he had seen his
/ mother strain out from cup of water
or pail of milk, and no wonder he
| brings afterward the large quaddped
| and the small insect into his sermon,
| and, while seeing the Pharisees careful
about small sins and reckless about
| large ones, cries out Woe unto you,
blind guides, which strain out a gnat
| md swallow a camel"
THE SHEEP KNOW HIS VOICE.
He had in bOyhood seen the shep
herds get their flocks mixed up, and to
one not familiar with the habits of
shepherds and their tlocks, hopelessly
| mixed up. And a sheepstealer APP
| pears on the scene and dishonesty de-
| nands some of those sheep, when he
|
the two honest shepherds, 1--WE will
soon settle this matter" and one shep-
| herd goes out in one direction and the
Dther shepherd goes out in the other
| direction, and the sheepstealer in an
,ther direction, and each one calls, and
| the flocks of each of the honest shep-
| herds rush to their owner, while the
| ,heepstealer calls and calls again, but
! yets not one of the flock No wonder
| that Christ years after, preaching on a
Ireat occasion and illustrating his own
shepherd qualities, says: ''When he
| putteth forth his own sheep he goeth
before them, and the sheep follow him,
FOR they know his voice, and the
stranger they will not follow, FOR they
know not the voice Of tie stranger"
The sides of these hi = are tarraced
COR grapes The boy Christ bad often
stood with great round eyes watching
the trimming of the grapevines. CIipl
goes the knife and off falls a branch.
The child Christ says to the farmer
What do you do that for?'' ''Oh, >
says the farmer, that is dead branch,
md it is doing nothing and is only in
The way so | cut it Off" Then the
farmer with his sharp knife prunes
rom living branch this and that ten
drill and the other tendril. But. :"
says the child Christ, ''these twigs that
YOU cut off now are not dead. What
do you do that for?' ''Oh," says the
farmer, 1--WE prune off these that the
main branch may have more of the
sap. and so be more fruitful" No
wonder in after years CHRIST said in
his sermon: Il am the true vine and
my Father is the husbandman: every
branch in me that beareth not fruit he
taketh away, and every branch that
beareth fruit he purgeth it that it may
bring forth more fruit" Capital! No
one who had not been a country boy
would have said that.
JESUS KNEW ALL NATURE.
Streaks of nature all through Christ's
sermons and conversations When a
pigeon descended upon Christ's head at
his baptism in the Jordan it was not
the first pigeon he had seen. And then
he has such wide sweep of discourse as
You may imagine from one who has
stood ON the hills that overlook Naza-
reth. As far as | understand, Christ
visited the Mediterranean sea only
once, but any clear morning he could
run up on a hill near Nazareth and
look off to the west and see the Med
iterranean, while there in the north is
snowy Mount Lebanon, clad as in
white robe of ascension, and yonder on
the east and southeast Mount Gilboa.
Mount Tabor and Mount Gilead, and
yondsp in the south is the plain of Es-
draelcn over which we rode yesterday
on our way to Nazareth. Those mount
aims of his boyhood in his memory, do
you wonder that Christ, when he want
ed q good pulpit, made it out of a
seeing the multitudes he
went up into the moungain." And
when he wanted especial communion
with God he took James and John and
Peter into "a mountain apart"
Oh, this country boy of Nazareth,
come forth to atone for the sins of the
world, and to correct the follies of the
world, and to stamp out the cruelties of
the world, and to illumine the darkness
of the world, and to transfgure the
hemispheres! So it has been the mis-
sion of the country boys in all ages to
transform and inspire and rescue.
They come into our merchandise and
our court rooms and our healing art
4
They lived in Nazareth before they en-
tered Jerusalem. And but for that
annual influx our cities would have en-
ervated and sickened and slain the
race. Late hours and hurtful apparel
and overtaxed digestive organs and
crowding environments of city life
would have halted the world, but the
valleys and mountains of Nazareth
have given fresh supply of health and
moral inauguration to Jerusalem, and
the country saves the town.
From the hills of New Hampshire and
the hills of Virginia and the hills of
Georgia come into our national elO-
quence the Websters and the Clays and
the Henry w. Gradys. From the plain
homes of Massachusetts, and Maryland
come into our national charities the
George Peabodys and the William Cor
corans. From the cabins of the lonely
country regions come into our national
destinies the Andrew Jacksons and the
Abraham Lincolns. From plowboy's
furrow and village counter and black
smiths forge come most of our city
giants Nearly all the Messiahs in all
departments dwelt in Nazareth before
they came to Jerusalem.r IeqncaAthis
day thanks from these cities, mostly
made prosperous by country boys, to
the farm houses and the prairies and
the mountain cabins, and the obscure
| homesteads of north and south and
east and west, to the fathers and moth
ers in plain homespun, if they be still
| alive, or the hillocks under which they
| sleep the long sleep. Thanks from Je-
r1salem to Nazareth.
MODERN CRUCIFIXION.
But alas that the city should so often
| treat the country boys as of old the
one from Nazareth was treated at Jeru-
saleml Slain not by hammers and
spikes, but by instruments just as cruel.
On every street of every city the cruel
fixion goes on. Every year shows its
ten thousand of the slain. Oh, how
we grind them up! Under what wheels,
in what mills and for what an awful
gristl Let the city take better care of
these boys and young men arriving
from the country. They are worth
saving They are now only the pre-
face of what they will be if instead of