The Penn's Grove record., 1891-05-22

1r at the prov OF the boat, AMI they took up,
the threat and the nsedle. aud the ropes and
the wooden blocks aud went to work; sew
inc saving. tying. tying: weaving, weaving;
rounding. pounding, until, the net mcndei,
they push IL of into tho sen and drop paddle
and hoist sail. and the cutwater went
through amid thu shoals OF fish, some OF the
descendants of which we had for breakfast
one morning while we were encanped on the
beach OF beautiful Galile,. Jnmes AMI John
had no time to go ashore. They were not
iishiuo for fun, az you and | do in summer
TINA. IL was their livelihood and that OF
their families. They meudel their nots
where they were, in the ship.
.Oh.r saws some one. 81 mean to get my
net meuded. and I will go down to the public
library. and I will see what the scientists say
about evolution and about the survival ut
the fttest,' and I will read up what tn.
t~heologians say about advanced thought ]
will leave the ship awhile. and will go ashore
and stay there until my net is mended." Do
that, my brother, and you will have no net
left. Instead of their helping you mend
your net, they will steal the pieces that re-
main. Better stay in the Gospel boat, where
you have all the means for mending your
net. What are they, do you asks l answer
all you need you have where you are, namely,
a Bible and a place to pray. The more you
study evolution, and adopt what is called
advanced thought, the bigger fool you will
be. Stay in the ship and mind your net.
That is where James the son of Zebedee aud
John his brother staid. That is where all
who get their nets mended stay.
These dear brethren Of all demo limitations,
afflicted with theological fidgets, had better
90 to mending nets instead of br eaking them.
Before they break up the old + eligion aud
try to foist on us a new religion let them &c
through some great sacrifice for Col that
will prove them worthy for such a work,
taking the advice of Talleyranl to a man
.-ba .Uo,fa1 70 upSot tba raiipiou Of .lpsuz
Christ and start a new one, when he said.
go and be crucified and then raise yourself
from the grave the third dayv Those who
propose to mend their nets by secular skep-
teal books are just like a man who has just
one week for fishing, and six of the days he
spends in reading Isaak Walton's Complete
Ancler.n and Wheatley's 'Rod and Line
and Scott's "Fishing in Northern Waters"
and Pullman's ''Vade Mecum Of Fly Fishing
for Trout" and then on Saturday morning,
his last day out, goes to the river to ply his
art, but tina day the fish will not bite, and
late ON Saturday night he goes home with
empty basket and a disappointed heart.
Meanwhile a man who never saw a big
library in all his life, has that week caught
with an old fishing tackle, enough to supply
his own table and the table of all his neigh
bors, and enough to salt down in barrels for
the long winter that will soon come in. Alas!
Alasl If. when the Saturday night of our
life drops on us it shall be found that we
have spent our time in the libraries oil
worldly philosophy, trying to mend our nets,
and we have only a few souls to report as
brought to God through our instrumental
". while some humble Gospel fisherman, his
library made up OF a Bible and an almanac,
shall come home laden with the results, bis
trophies the souls within fifteen miles of lis
log cabin meeting house:
in the time of great disturbance in Naples
in 1919 M~assaniello, a bare footed fishing
boy, dropped his fishing rod, and by strange
magnetism took command of that city of six
hundred thousand souls. He took off his fish
ing jacket and put on a robe OF gold in the
presence of bowling mobs. He put his hand
on his Lip as a signal, aud they were rent.
He waved his hand away from him, and they
retired to their homes. Armies passed IN re-
view before him. He became the nations
idol, The rapid rise and complete supremacy
Of that young fisherman, Massaniello, has no
parallel in all history. But something equal
to nat and better than that is an everyday
occurrence in heaven. :,
God takes some of those, who in this world
were fishers of men, and who toiled very
huinbly, but because of the way they mended
their nets and employed their nets after they
were mended, and suddenly hoists them and
robes them and scepters them and crowns
them and makes them rulers over cities, and
He marches armies of saved ones before them
| in review. Massaniellos u~nhonored on earth,
but radiated in heaven. The fisher boy or
Naples soon lost his power, but those people
of God who kept their nets mended and
| rightly swung them stall never lose their ex-
| allied place, but shall reign forever and ever
and ever. Keep that reward In sight.
But do not spend your time fishing with
nook aud line. Why did not James, the son
of Hebedee, sit on the wharf at Cana, his feet
hanging over. the lake and with a long pole
| and a worm on the hook dipped into the
wave, wait for some mullet to swim up and
be caught? Why dill not Zebeiee spend his
afternoon trying to catch one eel! No; that
work was too slow. These men were not
meuding a hook and line; they were meni.
| inr their nets. So let the church of God not
be content with having here one SOU
and next month another soul brought into
the kingdom. Sweep all the seas with nets
scoop nets. seine nets, drag nets, all enconi-
passing nets-aud take the treasures IN
by hundreds and thousands and millions, and
nations be o in = day, and the hem'spheres
quake with the tread of a ransoming God.
Do you know what will be the two most
tremendous hours in our heavenly existence!
Among the quadrillions OF ages which snail
roll on, what two occasions will be to us the
GREATEST
The day of our arrival thers will be to us
one of the two greatest. The second great
est, I think, will be the day when we snail
nave put in parallel lines before us what
Christ did for us and what We did for CHRIST
the one so great, the other so little. That
will be the only embarrassment in heaven.
NY Lord and my God What will We do and
what will we say when on one side are placed
the Saviour's great sacrifices for us and our
small sacrifices for Hin-His exile, His
humiliation, His agnnies on one hand, and
our pocr weak, insufficient sacrifices on the
other? To make the contrast less over
whelming, let US quickly mend our nets and
like the Galilesn fishermen may we be divine
ly helped to cast them on the right side Of
the ship.