Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1890-12-15

That placed it near his cot;
There, woodman, let it stand,
Thy shall harm 1t not.
When but an idle boy
sought its grateful shade;
In all their gushing JOY
Here, too, my sisters playd-
NV mother kiss ID here.
MY father press'd my hand
Forgive this foolish tear,
But let that old oak stand!
Ny heartstrings round thee cling
Close as thy bark. old friend.
Here shall the wild bird sing
And still thy branches bend,
Old tree! the storm still brave!
And wOodman, leave the spot
While I've hand to save.
Thy ak shall harm it not.
AS we ride along on these mountains
of Lebanon we bethink how its cedars
spread their branches and breathe their
aroma and cast their shadows all
through the Bible. Solomon discoursed
about them in his botanical works
when he spoke of trees ''from the ce-
dar tree that is in Lebanon, even unto
the hyssop that springeth out of the
wall" The Psalmist says, The right
eous shall grow like a cedar in Leba-
non." and in one of his magnificent
doxologies calls on the cedars to praise
the lord And Solomon says the coun-
tenance of Christ is excellent as the
cedars, and Isaiah declares, ''The day
of the Lord shall be upon all the &C.
dars of Lebanon" And jeremiah and
Ezekiel and Amos and Zephaniah and
Zechariah weave its foliage into their
sublimest utterances.
AS we ride over Lebanon today there
is a bowling wind sweeping past and
dash of rain, all the better enabling us
to appreciate that description of a tenn
pest, which no doubt was suggested by
what David had seen with his own eyes
among these heights, for as a soldier he
carried his wars clear up to Damascus,
and such poet as he, [ warrant, spent
many a day on Lebanon And perhaps
while he was seated on this very rock
against which our carriage jOlts he
writes that wonderful description of q
thunder storm: THE voice of the Lord
is powerful The voice of the Lord is
full of majesty. The voice OF the Lord
breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. Yea,
the Lord breaketh the cedars of Leb-
anon. He maketh them also to skip
like a calf, Lebanon and SiriOn like
young unicorn. The voice of the Lord
divideth the flames of fire.
As the lion is the monarch of the
fields and behemoth the monarch of
the waters, the cedar is the monarch of
the trees. And [ think one reason why
it is so glorified all up and down the
Bible is because we need more of its
characteristics in our religious life. We
have too much of the willow and are
easily bent this way or that; too
much of the aspen, and we tremble I'M
der every zephyr of assault; too much
of the bramble tree, and our sharp
points sting and wound but not
enough of the cedar, wide branched
and heaven aspiring and tempest Crap
ping.
But the reason these cedar stand SO
well is that they are deep rooted. They
run their anchors down into the cav
erns of the mountain and fasten to the
very foundations of the earth, and
| twist around and clinch themselves
on the other side of the deepest layer
| of rock they can reach. And that is
! stand and Christians who fall. 1t is
| the difference between a superficial
| character and one that has clutched its
roots deep down around and under
| the Rock of Ages
| ABIDE IN EVERLASTING STRENGTH.
One of the Lebanon cedars was ex-
amined by a scientist, and from its con-
centric circles it vas found to be thirty
! five hundred years old and still stand
! ing, and there rs such thing as ever
lasting strength and such a stanchness
of Christian character that all time and
all eternity instead of being its demo
| Iition shall be its opportunity. Not
such are those vacillating Christians
who are so pious on Sunday that they
have no religion left for the weekday.
As the anaconda gOrges itself with
| food and then seems for a long time to
| lie thoroughly insensible, so there are
men who will on Sunday get such a
religious surfeit that the rest of the
week they seem thoroughly dead to all
religious emotion.
They weep in church under charity
sermon, but if on Monday q subject of
want presents itself at the door the beg
CARS safety will depend entirely on
quick limbs and an unObstructed stair
way. It takes all the grace they can
get to keep them from committing as
sault and battery on those intruders
who come with pale faces and stories
of distress and subscription papers.
The reason that God planted these
cedars in the Bible was to suggest that
we ought, in our religious character, to
be deep ike the cedar. high like the
cedar, broad branched as the cedar.
A traveller measured the spread of
the boughs of one of these trees, and
found it one hundred and eleven feet
from branch tip to branch tip, and l
have seen cedars of Christian character
that through their prayers and CHAIR
ties put out one branch to the utter
most parts of America and another
branch to the uttermOst parts of Asia,
and these wide branched Christians
will keep on multiplying until all the
earth is overshadowed with mercy.
But mark you, these cedars of Leb-
anon could not grow if planted in mild
climates, and in soft air, and in care
fully watered gardens. They must
have the gymnasium of the midnight
hurricane to develop their arms. They
must play the athlete with thousand
winters before their feet are rightly
planted, and their foreheads rightly
lifted, and their arms rightly muscled.
And if there be any other way for de
veloping strong Christian character ex-
cept by storms of trouble, never heard
of it. Call the roll of martyrs, call the
roll of the prophets, call the roll of the
apostles, and see which of them had an
easy time of it. Which of these cedars
grew in the warm valley? Not one OF
them. Honeysuckles thrive best on
the south side of the house, but cedars
in Syrian whirlwind.
Men and women who hear this OF
read this, instead of your grumbling
because you have it hard, thank God
that you are in just the best school fol-
making heroes and heroines. 1t is true
both for this world and the next Rock