News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1890-08-21

| preaching, DuU III IS the winter gram !;
and though the snow of worldliness
may come down upon it, it will yield
after awhile glorious harvest. Let us
be sure we SOW the right kind of seed.
| Sow mullen stalk and mullen stalk will
come up. Sow Canada thistles and
Canada thistles will come up. Sow
wheat and wheat will come up. Let US
! distinguish between truth and error.
Let US know the difference between
wheat and hellebore, oats and henbane.
The largest denomination in this
country is the denomination of Moth
ingarians. Their religion is a system of
negations. You say to one of them,
''What do you believer 'Well, don't
believe in infant baptism" ''What do
you believe" ''Well, l don't believe
in the perseverance of the saints. >
''Well, now tell me what you do be-
! isye9' well, l don't believe in the
eternal punishment of the wicked. :"
So their religion is a row of cyphers.
Believe something and teach it; or, to
resume the figure of my text, scatter
A minister in New York preached a
sermon calculated to set the denominc-
tions of Christians quarTeling He was
sowing nettles A minister in Boston
advertised that he would preach ser
mon on the superiority of transcenden-
tai and organized forces to untranscen-
dental and unorganized forces What
was he sowing? The Lord Jesus Christ
nineteen centuries ago planted the di-
vine seed of doctrine 1t sprang
up. On one side of the stalk are all
the churches of Christendom. On the
other side of the stalk are all the free
governments of the earth, and on the
top there shall be a Towering millennium
after awhile. All from the gospel seed
of doctrine. Every word that parent,
or Sabbath school teacher, or city mis-
sionary or other Christian worker
speaks for Christ comes up. Yea, it
| comes up with compound interest
you having one SOUL that one saving
ten, the ten a hundred, the hundred a
thousand, the thousand ten thousand,
the ten thousand one hundred thou
sand-on, on forever.
A NARROWING AND REAPING.
Again l remark, in grace as in the
farm there must be narrowing. | re-
fer not to a harrow that goes over the
field in order to prepare the ground for
the seed, but harrow which goes over
after the seed is sown, lest the birds
pick up the seed, sinking it down into
the earth so that it can take root.
There are new kinds of harrow, but
the harrow as | remember it was made
of bars of wood nailed across each other,
and the under side of each bar was
furnished with sharp teeth, and when
the horses were hitched to it it went
tearing and leaping across the field,
driving the seed down into the earth
until it sprung up in the harvest. Be
reavement, sorrow, persecution are the
Lords harrows to sink the gospel
truth into your heart. There were truths
that you heard thirty years ago that have
not affected you until recently. Some
great trouble came over you, and the
truth was narrowed in, and it has come
up. What did God mean in this coun-
try in 1857? For a century there was
the gospel preached, but a great deal
of it produced no result. Then God
harnessed wild panic to harrow of
commercial disaster and that harrow
went down Wall street and up Wall
street, down Third street and up Third
street, down State street and up State
street, until the whole land was torn to
pieces as it had never been before.
What followed the harrow2 A great
awakening in which there were 500, 600
souls brought into the kingdom of our
Lord. No harrow, no crop.
Again l remark, in grace as in the
farm there must be reaping. Many
Christians speak of religion as though
it were a matter of economies or insur-
ance They expect to reap in the next
world. Oh, no! Now is the time to
reap. Gather up the joy of the Chris
tian religion this morning, this after
noon this night. If you have not as
much grace as you would like to have,
thank God for what you have and pray
for more You are no worse enslaved
than Joseph, no worse troubled than
was David, no worse scourged than was
Paul. Yet amid the rattling of fet-
ters, and amid the gloom of dun
geons, and amid the horror of ship
wreck they triumphed in the grace
of God. The weakest man here
has 500 acres of spiritual joy all
ripe. Why do you not go and reap its
You have been groaning over your in
ffrmities for thirty years. Now give
one round shout over your emancipa-
ton. You say you have it so hard
you might have it worse. You wonder
why this great cold trouble keeps revolv-
ing through your soul, turning and turn
! ing, with a black hand on the crank.
| All, that trouble is the grindstone on
which you are to sharpen your sickle.
To the fields! Wake up! Take off
your green spectacles, your blue spec
tacles, your black spectaces. Pull up
the corners of your mouth as far as you
| pull them down. To the fieldsi Reapl
Reap!
A TIME FOR THREsHING.
Again remark, in grace as in farm
ing there is time for threshing. l tell
you bluntly that is death. Just as a
farmer beats the wheat out of the
straw so death beats the soul out OF
the body. Every sickness is a stroke
| of tha fail and the sickbed is the
threshing floor. What, say you, is death
to q good man only taking the wheat
out of the straw That is all. An aged
man has fallen asleep. Only yesterday
you saw him in the sunny porch play
ing with his grandchildren. Calmly ht
received the message to leave thi'
world. He bade a pleasant good-by tC
his old friends. The telegraph carries
the tidings, and on swift rail trains tht
kindred come, wanting once more tC
look on the face of dear old grand
father. Brush back the gray hair
from his brow; it will never ache again
Put him away in the slumber of th
tomb. He will not be afraid of tha
night. Grandfather was never afraiC
of anything. He will rise in the morn
ing of the resurrection. Grandfathe
was always the first to rise His voic
has already mingled in the doxology o
heaven. Grandfather always did sim
in church, Anything ghastly in that
No The threshing Of the wheat ou
of the straw. That is all.