Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1891-02-16

those of February be as plentiful as
those of December and January have
been, high and deep and wide and en-
riching; then the harvests next July
will embroider with gold this sntire
American continent. But who with
any analogical faculty can notice that
out of such chill as the snow comes the
wheat, without realizing that chilling
sorrows produce harvests of grace
The strongest Christians, without any
exception, are those who were, by be-
reavenents or sickness or poverty or
persecution, or all of them together,
showed under. and again and again
showed under. These snow storms of
troubled They kill the malarias of the
soul. They drive us out of worldly
dependence to God. Call the roll of
all the eminently piOus of all the ages
and you will find them the sons and
daughters Of sorrow.
The Maronites say that one charac-
teristic of the cedar tree is that when |
the air is full of snow, and it begins to |
descend. the tree lifts its branches in a |
way better to receive the snow and |
bear up under it; and | know by much |
observation that the grandest cedars OF
Christian character lift higher their |
branches toward God when the SHOWS |
of trouble are coming. Lord Nelson's
coffin was made out of the lnasts of
Torrent, in which he had fought so
bravely, and your throne in heaven, .
suffering child of God, will be built out
of conquered earthly disasters.
What gave John Bunyan such a
wondrous dream of the celestial city9
The Bedford penitentiary. What gave
Richard Baxter such power to tell of
the Saints Everlasting Rest" and to
give his immortal Call to the UncOn-
verted?" Physical disease which racked
every nerve of his body. What made
George Whitefield so mighty in saving
souls, bringing ten thousand to God
when others brought hundred? Per
secution that caricatured and assailed
him all up and down England, and
dead verlnin thrown in his face when
he was preaching.
What mellowed and glorified WILDER
| forces Christian character? tinan-
cial misfortune that led him to write,
Il know not why my life is spared
so long except it be to show that
man can be as happy without
fortune as with one" What gave John
Milton such keen spiritual eyesight that
he could see the battle of the angelsl
Extinguishment of physical eyesight
What is the highest observatory for
STUDYING the stars of hope. and faith
and spiritual promise? The believers
sick bed What proclaims the richest
and most golden harvests that wave on
all the hills of heavenly rapture? The
SHOWS, the deep SHOWS, the awful
SHOWS of earthly calamity. And that
comforting thought is one of the treas
ures of the snow
MADE WHITE LIKE THE SNOW.
Another treasure of the snow is the
suggestion that this mantle covering
the earth is like the soul after it is for
given. Wash me-" said the Psalmist,
land | shall be whittier than snow. y
Nv dear friend Gasherie De Witt went
over to Geneva, Switzerland, for the
recovery of his health, but the Lord
had something better for him than
earthly recovery. Little did l think
when | babe him good-by, one lovely
afternoon on the other side of the sea
to return to America, that we would
not meet again till we meet in heaven.
As he lay one Sabbath morning on
his dying pillow in Switzerland, the
window open, he was looking out upon
Mont Blanc The air was clear. That
great mountain stood in its robe of
snow gIittering in the morning light,
and my friend said to his wife: Jennie,
90 you know what that snow on Mont
Blanc makes me think of? 1t makes
me think that the Righteousness Oh
Christ and the pardon of God cover
all the sins and imperfections of my
life as that snow covers up that mount
ain, for the promise is that though Our
sins be as scarlet they shall be as white
as snow" Was not that glorious!
do not care who you are or where you
are, you need as much as L do that
cleansing which made GaSherie DE
Witt good while he lived and glorious
when he died Do not take it as the
tenet of an obsolete theology that oul
nature is corrupt. Wemust be changed
We must be made over again.
The ancients thought that snow water
had especial power to wash out deeI
stains All other water might fail, but
melted snow would make them clean
Well, Job had great admiration fol
snow, but he declares in substance tha
| if he should wash his soul in melted
snow he would still be covered will
mud like man down in a ditch (Jol
tx, 3d. eff l wash myself in snow
water, and make my hands never Sc
clean, yet shalt thou plunge me in the
ditch and mine own clothes shall abhol
me-" We must be washed in the foun
tain of Gods mercy before we can b'
whittier than snow. without holmes
no man shall see the Lord" Oh, fo
the cleansing power!
If there be in this audience one mar
. or woman whose thoughts have al
ways been right, and whose words al
ways right, and whose actions always
right, let such a one rise, or if already
standing lift the right hand. Not one
: All we, like sheep, have gone astray
=, Unclean. uncaeanI And yet we may
n be made whittier than snow; wmteF thar
s that which on a cold winters morning
t after a night of storm, clothes the tre'
e from bottom of trunk to top of hlghes
o branch; whittier than that which TIL
e hour makes the Adirondacks, and tn
e Sierra Nevadas and Mount Washington
/ heights of pomp and splendor fit to en-
u throne an archangel.
q sETHIS IS THE WAY; WALK YE IN IT
II In the time of Graham, the essaylst
't in one mountain district of Scotlan
Il an average of ten shepherds perishe'
= every winter in the snow drifts, and s
d he proposed that at the distance
e every mile pole fifteen feet high an
Il with two cross pieces be erected show
n ing the points of the compass, and
II bell hung at the top, so that ever
'r breeze would ring it, and so the los
one on the mountains would hear tn
70 sound and take the direction given b
v. this pole with the cross pieces and g
Ill safely home. Whether that propose
rs plan was adopted or not do not know
a | but T declare TO all YOU who are