Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1890-03-31

her fathers wish, and fling a few
as much as to say: II have kept this
surplus property, through all these
severe winters, and through all these
ing world, and would keep it longer il
l could, but as I must give it up, take
it, and much good may it do your
Now we begin to understand the text,
Better is a living dog than a dead
lion"
Who would attempt to write the
obituary of the dead lions of com
merce, the dead lions of law, the dead
lions of medicine, the dead lions of
social influence? Vast capacity had
they, and mighty range, and other
men in their presence were as power
less as the antelope or heifer or giraffe
when from the jungle a Numidian
lion springs upon its prey. But they
get through with life. They lay down
in their magnificent lair. They have
made their last sharp bargain. They
have spoken their last hard word. They
have committed their last mean act.
When a tawny inhabitant of the des-
ert rolls over helpless, the liOness and
whelps fill the air with shrieks and
howIs, and lash themselves into Ia
mentation, and it is a genuine grief
for the poor things. But when this
dead lion of mOnstrous uselessness ex-
pires, there is nothing but dramatized
woe, for Better is living dog than
a dead lion"
''IF I ONLY HAD.
Ny text also means that an OppOr-
icsh
than a great opportunity passed. We
only had" We can all look back
have done great decd, or might have
might have dealt stroke that would
have accomplished a vast result.
Through stupidity or lack of apprecia-
ton of the crisis, or through procrasti-
nation, we let the chance go by. How
much time we have wasted in thinking
of what we might have said or might
have done! We spend hours and days
and years in walking around that dead
lion. We cannot resuscltate 1t. 1t
will never open its eyes again. There
will never be another spring in its
paw. Dead as any feline terror of
South Africa, through whose heart
thirty years ago Gordon Cumming
sent the slug. Don't let us give any
more time to the deploring of the dead
past. There are other great cpportu-
mites remaining. They may not be
as great, but they are worth our atten-
ton. Small opportunities all around,
opportunities for the saying of kind
words and doing of kind deeds. Help
lessness to be helped. Disheartened
ones to be encouraged. Lost ones to
be found Though the present may
be insignificant as compared with the
past, Better is a living dog than a
dead lion"
The most useless and painful feel
ing is the one of regret. Repent of
lost opportunities we must, and get
pardon we may, but regrets weaken,
dishearten and cripple for future
work. If a sea captain who once had
charge of a White Star steamer
across the Atlantic ocean, one
foggy night runs on a rock off
Newfoundland, and passengers and
ship perish, shall he refuse to
take command of q small boat up
the North river, and say: II never will
60 on the water again unless can run
one of the White Star line?" Shall
the engineer of a lightning express,
who at the station misread the tele
gram of the train dispatcher and
went into collision, and for that has
been put down to the work of en-
gineering on q freight train, say: Il
never will again mount an engine I'M
less [ can run a vestibule express"
Take what you have of opportunity
left. Do your best with what remains.
Your shortest winter day is worth
more to you than can be the longest
day of a previous summer. Your
opportunity now, as compared with
previous opportunities, may be small
as rat terrier compared with the lion
which at MatabOsa, fatally wounded
by the gun of David Livingstone, in
its death agony leaped upon the mis-
sionary explorer and with its jaws
crushed the bone of his arm to splint-
but, Better is a living dog than a
dead lion"
My text also means that the condi-
ton Of the most wretched man alive
is better than that of the most favored
sinners departed. The chance of these
last is gone. Where they are they can
not make any earthly assets available.
After Charlemagne was dead he was
set in an ornamented sepulcher on a
golden throne, and a crown was put
on his cold brow, and q scepter in his
stiff hand, but that gave him no do
miniOn III the next world. One of the
most intensely interesting things [ saw
last winter in Egypt was Pharaoh OF
Olden times, the very Pharaoh who
tons on his sarcOphagus and the writ
beyond controversy that he was the
Pharaoh of Bible times
All the Psychologists and the ex-
sc0undrel himself Visible are the
against the Israelitish brick makers.
There are the sockets of the merciless
eyes with which he looked upon the
is the hair that floated in the breeze
off the Red sea. There are the very
lips with which he commanded them
to make bricks without straw. Thous-
ands of years afterward, when the
rolled, old Pharaoh lifted up his arm
Slo II III ILL lJ4O1 ClC1OII, OltO 1IIS SAlI1Ily
bones cannot again clutch his shattered
scepter. He is a dead lion. And is
not any man now living, in the fact
that he has opportunity of repentance
and salvation, better off than any of
those departed ones who, by authority
or possessions or influence, were posi-
lively leonine, and yet wicked?
What a thing to congratulate you
on is your life! Why, it is worth
more than all the gems of the universe
kindled into one precious stone. [ am
alive What does that mean? Why,
it means that [ still have all opportu-
nifty of being saved myself and help
ing others to be saved To be alive
Why, it means that [ have yet anoth-
er chance to correct my past mistakes
and make sure work for heaven. Alive,
are we? Come, let us celebrate it by
new resolutions, new self examina
ton, new conservation and a new ca
reer. The smallest and most insignif-
can't today is worth to us more than
five hundred yesterdays. Taking adj
vantage of the present, let us get par
don for all the past and security for all
the future. Where are our forgiven
sins? [ don't know God don't know
either. He says, ''Your sins and in
EQUITIES will [ remember no more"