Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1890-10-09


because he may not have been invited to
the houses of merchant princes surrounded
by redolent gardens, but to teach all men
and women engaged in trying to make the
world better that they must not be squeam-
ish and fastdious and finical and over par
ticular in doing { be work of the world.
The Church of God is dying of fastidi-
business. We cry over the sufferings of the
world in hundred dollar pocket handker-
chiefs and then put cent in the poor box.
There are many willing to do Christian
work among the clearly, and the refined,
and the elegant, and the educated; but ex-
cuse them from taking a loaf Of bread
down a dirty alley, excuse them from
teaching mission school among the I'M
combed and the unwashed, excuse them
from touching the hand of one whose
finger nails are IN mourning for departed
soap. Such religious precisionists can toll
in atmosphere laden with honeysuckle
and rosemary, but not in air floating up
from the malodorous vats No, no, mol
Excuse them from lodging with one 81
mon, the tanner.
During the last war there were in Vir-
| ginia some sixty or seventy wounded sol
diers in barn, on the second floor, so near
the roof that the heat of the August sun
was almost insupportable. The men were
| dying from sheer exhaustion and suffoca-
4 ton. distinguished member of the
4 Christian commission said to the nurse
who stood there, wash the faces and the
/ feet of these men and il will revive them"
/ mo" said the nurse, II didn't come into
the army to wash anybody's feet"
/ "Well, said the distinguished member of
1 the commission, "bring me water and a
towel; will be very glad to wash their
/ feet One was the spirit of the devil, the
other the spirit of Christ
/ PETERS VISION on THE HOUSE TOP.
! But reference to Peter reminds me that
we must 90 to the house top in Joppa
i where he was taught the democracy Of re
4 ligion. That was about the queerest thing
/ that ever happened. On our way to that
I house top we passed an old well where the
4 great stones were worn deep with the ropes
/ Of the buckets and it must be a well many
/ centuries old, and think Peter drank out
of It. Four or five goat or calf skins filled
with water lay about the yard. We soon
got up the steps and on the house top. II
was in such a place in Joppa that Peter,
one noon while he was waiting for dinner,
had hunger fit and tainted away, and had
vision or dream or trance | said 10 my
friends on that house top, Listen while
read about what happened here" And
opening the Bible we had the whole story.
II seems that Peter on the house top
dreamed that great blanket was let down
out Of heaven and In 1t were sheep and
goats and cattle and mules and pigeons
and buzzards and snakes and all manner
of creatures that fly the air or walk the
fields or crawl the earth, and in the dream
voice told him rs he was hungry 10 eat,
and he said, 81 cannot eat things unclean.h
Three times he dreamed il. There was
then heard a knocking at the gate Of the
house on the top of which Peter lay In a
trance, and three men asked "ls Peter
here?" Peter while yet wondering what
his dream meant, descends the stairs and
meets these strangers nj the gate, and they
tell him that good man by the name Of
Cornelius, in the city Of CRsarea, has also
had a dream, and has sent them for Peter,
and to ask him 10 come and preach. At
that call Peter left Joppa for C@sarea. The
dream he had just had prepared him to
preach, for Peter learned by il to reject no
people as unclean and whereas he pre-.
viously thought he must preach only to
the Jews, now he goes to preach TO the
Gentiles who were considered unclean.
Notice how the two dreams meet-Pe.
ter's dream on the house top, Cornelius
dream at CRsarea. So have noticed prov
licences meet, distant events meet, dreams
meet Every dream Is hunting up some
other dream, and every event is searching
for some other event In the fifteenth cen
fury di92) the great event was the dis,
covery of America. The art Of printing.
born in the same century, goes out to meet
that discovery and make the new world
an intelligent world The Declaration of
independence announcing equal rights
meets Robert Burns
mans man for a that
GODS OPPORTUNITY.
The United States was getting too large
to be managed by one government, aud
telegraphy was invented To compress with
in an hour the whole continent. Armies
in the civil war were to be fitted out with
clothing and the sewing machine inven-
ton came out to make it possible, Inn
meuse farming acreage is presented in this
country, enough to support millions Of our
native born and millions of foreigners; but
the old style of pillow and scythe and reaper
and thresher cannot do the work, and there
come steam plows, steam harrows, steam
reapers, steam rakes, steam threshers and
the work is accomplished. The forests of
the earth fail to afford sufficient fuel, and so
the coal mines surrender sufiiciency. The
cotton crops were luxuriant, but of COM
paratively little value, for they could not
be managed, and so, at just the right time,
Hargreayes came with his invention Of the
spinning jenny, and Arkwright with his
roller and Whitney with his cotton gin.
The world, after pottering along with tai
low candles and whale oil. was crying for
better light and more of il, and the hills of
Pennsylvania poured out rivers Of oil, and
kerosene illumined the nations. But the
oil wells began to fail, and then the cleo
trio light comes forth to turn night into
day
So all events are woven together, and the |
world is magniicently governed, because
it is divinely governed. We criticise things, |
and think the divine machinery is going |
wrong, and put our fingers amid the wheels |
only to get them crushed. But Isay, hands |
off Things are coming out gloriously. |
Cornelius may be in Cesarea, and Peter in
Joppa but their dreams meet 1t is one |
hand that is managing the world, and that