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

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loose and your feet loose and yorr
tongue loose and your soul loose
There is no sin that the Bible so ar
raigns and punctures and flagellates
as the sin of unbelief, and that is what
is the matter with you. "Oh, " you
say, If you knew what l once was
and how many times | have grievous-
ly strayed, you would understand why
[ do not come out brighter Then |
think you would call yourself the
chief Of sinners. | am glad you hit
upon that term, for [ have promise
that fits into your case as the cogs OF
one wheel between the cogs of another
wheel or as the key fits into the
labyrinths of lock A man who was
once called Saul but afterwards Paul
declared: This is a faithful saying
and worthy of all acceptation that
Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners, of whom [ am
chief" Mark that-"of whom l
am chief. :" Put down your over
coats and hats and l will take care
OF them while you kill Stephen"
so Saul said to the stoners of the
first martyr-''I do not care to exert
myself much, but I will guard your
surplus apparel while you do the MUIR
der" The New Testament account
says: The witnesses laid down their
clothes at a young mans feet whose
name was Saul" No wonder he said:
Sinners, Of whom I am the chief.
Christ is used to climbing. He climbed
to the top Of the temple. He climbed
to the top Of Mount Olivet. He
climbed to the top of the cliffs
about Nazareth. He climbed to
the top of Golgotha. And to the
top of the hills and the mountains of
YOUR transgression he is ready to
climb with pardon for every one of
you. The groan of Calvary IS might
Ter than the thunder of Sinai. Full
receipt is offered for all your indebt-
edness. If one throw stone at mid
night into bush where the hedge
bird rooSts, it Immediately begins to
sing; and into the midnight hedges
of your dependency these words [
hurl, hoping to awaken you to an
them
CHRISTIANS HAVE A RIGHT To REJOICE.
Drop the tunes in the minor key and
take the major Do you think it
pleases the Lord for you to be carry
ing around with you the debris and
carcasses of old transgressions? You
make me think of some ship that has
had a tempestuOus time at sea, and
now that it proposes another voyage,
keeps on its davits the damaged life
boats, and the splinters of a shlvered
mast, and the broken glass of a smash
ed sRylght Ny advice is: clear the
decks, overheard with all the damaged
rigging, brighten up the sailed smoke
stacks, open a new log book, haul in
the planl1s, lay out a new course and
set sail for heaven. You have had
the spiritual dumps long enough.
You will please the Lord more
by being happy than by being miser-
able Have YOU not sometimes started
out in the rain with your umbrella
and you were busy thinking and you
did not notice that the rain had
stopped, and though it had cleared off
you still had your umbrella up, and
when YOU discovered what you were
doing you felt silly enough? That is
what some of you are doing in religious
things. You have got SO used to sad
ness that though the rain has stopped
you still have your umbrella up. Come
out of the shadow. Ascend the stairs
of your sepulcher. Step out into the
broad light Of monday. We come
around you to help remove your grave
clothes, and voice from the heavens,
tremulous but omnipotent, commands:
Loose him, and let him 60"
Again, my text has good advice con-
corning any Christian hampered and
bothered and bound by fear of his own
dissolution. To such the Book refers
when it speaks of those who through
fear of death were all their lifetime
subject to bondage The most of us,
even if we have the Christian hope,
are towards about death. If a plank
fall from a scaffOlding and just grazes
our hat, how pale we look. If the At
lantic ocean plays with the steamship,
pitching it toward the heavens and let
ting it suddenly drop, how even the
Christian passengers poster the stew
ard or stewardess as to whether there
is any danger, and the captain, who
has been all night on the bridge and
chilled through, coming in for a cup
of coffee, IS assailed with a whole
battery of questions as to what
ne thinks of the weather. And
many of the best people are, as
Paul says, throughout their lifetime
in bondage by fear of death. My
brothers and sisters, if we made full
use of our religion we would soon get
over this, Backed ul$oy the teachings
of your Bible, just look through the
telescope some bright night and see
how many worlds there are and re-
fleet that all you have seen compared
with the number of worlds in exist
ence are less than the fingers of your
right hand as compared with all the
fingers of the human race. How fool
ish then for us to think that ours is
the only world fit for us to stay in. |
think that ali the stars are inhabited
and by beings like the human race in
feelings and sentiments and the differ
ence is in lung respiration and heart
beat and physical conformation,
their physical conformation fit for
the climate of their world and our
physical conformation fit for the eli
mate of our world. So we shall
feel at home III any of the stellar
neighborhoods, our physical limita
tons having ceased. One of our first
realizations in getting out of this
world, [ think, will be that in this |
world we were very much pent up and |
had cramped apartments and were |
kept on the limits. The most even of |
our small world is water, and the wa
ter says to the human race: Don't |
come here or you will drown" A
few thousand feet up the atmosphere |
is uninhabitable, and the atmosphere |
says to the human race: Don't come |
up here or you cannot breathe" A
few miles down the earth is a furnace
of fire, and the fire says: Don't come
here or you will burn" The caverns
of the mountains are full of poisonous
gases, and the gases say: Don't come |
here or you will be asphyxiated.
And, crossing a rail track, you
must look out or you will be |
crushed. And, standing by a steam
boiler, you must look out or you
will be blown up. And pneumonias
and pleurisies and consumptions and |
apoplexies go across this earth in
focks, in droves, in herds, and it is a |
world of equinoxes and cyclones and |
graves. Yet we are under the delu-
sion that it is the only place fit to stay |
in We want to stick to the wet plank |
mid ocean while the great ship, ''the |
City of God" of the Celestial line,
goes sailing past, and would gladly |
take US up in life boat. My Chris |
tan friends, let me tear off your de-
spondencies and frights about dissolu
ton. Ny Lord commands me regard
ing you, saying: ''Loose him, and let |