Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1891-05-23
Al Plea For Faith and Patience.

"James the son OF Zebedee, and John,
his brother, in a ship with Zebedee'
their father, mending their nets"
81 60 fishing" cried Simon Peter
to his comrades, and tine most OF his
apostles had hands hard from fishing
tackle. The fisheries OF the world
have always attracted attention. In
the third century the queen OF Egypt
had for pin money four hundred and
seventy thousand dollars received from
the fisheries OF lake Moeris. And II
the time should ever come when the
immensely OF the worlds population
could not be fed by the vegetables ana
meats of the land, the sea has an
amount OF animal life that would feed
all the populations OF the earth and lat
ten them with food that by its phos-
phorus would make generation brainy
and intellectual beyond anything that
the world has ever imagined. My text
takes us among the Galilean fishermen.
One day Walter Scott, while hunting in
an old drawer found among some OLD
fishing tackle. the manuscript OF MS
immortal book "Waverly." which he
had put away us of no worth, and who
knows but that to-day we may find some
unknown wealth OF thought while look
ing at the fishing tackle in the text:
It is not a good day for fishing and
three men are in the boat repairing the
broken fishing nets. II you are fishing
with hook and line and the fish will
not bite, it Is about time to put the
anglers apparatus into better condi-
ton.
Perhaps the last fish you hauled in
was SO large that something snapped
Or If you were fishing with net, there
was mighty houndering OF the scales
or an exposed nail on the side OF the
boat which broke some OF the threads
and let part OF the captives OF the deep
escape into their natural element. And
hardly anything is more provoking
than to nearly land score or a hun
bred Of trophies from the deep and
when you are in the full glee OF hauling
in the spotted treasures, through some
imperfection of the net they splash
back into the wave. That is too much
OF trial of patience for most fishermen
to endure, and many man ordinarily
correct OF speech in such circumstances
comes to an intensity of utterance UNI
justitiable. Therefore no good fisher
man considers the time wasted that Is
spent in mending his net.
Now the bible again and again rep
resents Christian workers as fishers OF
men, and we are all sweeping through
the sea of humanity some kind OF net.
Indeed, there have been enough nets
out and enough fishermen busy to have
landed the whole human race in the
kingdom of God long before this. What
is the matter? The gospel is all right,
and il has been q good time for catching
souls for thousands years. Why, then,
the failures? The trouble is with the
nets and most OF them need TO be mend
ed. | propose to show You what is the
natter with most of the nets and how to
mend them. In the text old Zebedee
and his two boys, James and John, were
doing good thing when they sat in the
boat mending their nets.
The trouble with many OF our nets is
that the meshes are too large. II fish
can get his gills and half his body
through the network, he tears and
rends and works his way out and leaves
the place through which he squirmed a
tangle OF broken threads. The Bible
weaves faith and works tight together,
the law and the Gospel, Righteousness
and forgiveness. Some OF our nets have
meshes so wide that the sinner floats in
and out and is not at any moment
caught for the heavenly landing. In
our desire to make everything so easy
We relax, we loosen, we widen.
Is the Bible language an unmeaning
verbiage when it talks about self denial
and keeping the body under and about
walking the narrow way and entering
the straight gait and about carrying
the cross? Is there to be no way of tell
ing whether man is q Christian ex-
cept by his taking the communion chal-
ice on sacramental day? May man be
as reckless about his thoughts, about
his words, about his temper, about his
amusements, about his dealings after
conversion? One half the gospel nets
with which we have been scooping the
sea have had such wide meshes that
they have been all torn to pieces by the
rushing out into the world OF those |
whom q tighter net would have kept in. |
The only use Of net is to keep the fish |
from going back to where they |
were before and taking them where |
they could not have been taken by any
other means. Alas, that the words OF
Christ are so little needed when He
said: whatsoever doth not bear his |
cross and come after Me cannot be My |
disciple" The church Is fast becom-
ing as bad as the world, and when it |
gets as bad as the world 1t will be worse ]
than the world by so much as it will |
add hypocrisy OF most appalling kind |
to its other defects.
Now have noticed that man cannot |
fish and fight at the same time. He
either neglects his net or his musket.