Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1891-01-05

class OF men and women in all these as
semblages in whom / have especial in
terest, and that is those who had good
fathers and mothers once, but they are
dead What multitudes of us are or
phans. We may be forty, fifty, eighty
years old, but we never get used to
having father and mother gone. Oh.
how often we have had troubles that
we would like to have told them. and
we always felt as long as father and
mother were alive we had some one to
whom we could go. Now, l would like
to ask if you think that all their prayers
in your behalf have been answered.
No" you say, but it is too late, the
old folks are gone now"
| must courteously contradict you
1t is not too late I have a friend in
the ministry who was attending the
last hours of an aged Christian, and
my friend said to the old Christian, 'Is
there no trouble on your mind" The
old man turned his face to the wall for
few moments, and then said: Only
one thing. | hope for the salvation of
my ten children, but not one of them
is yet saved; yet l am sure they will
be. God means to wait until / am
gone" So he died. When my friend
told the circumstances eight of the
ten had found the Lord, and | have no
doubt the other two before this have
found him. Oh, that the long post
poned answers to prayer for you, my
brother for you, my sister, might this
hour descend in power from on high.
The history of these unanswered
prayers for you God only knows. They
may have been offered in the solemn
birth hour They may have been
offered when you were down with scar
let fever or diphtheria or membranous
Group. They may have been offered
some night when you were sound asleep
in the trundle bed and your mother
came in to see if you were rightly
covered in the cold winter night They
may have been offered at that time
which comes at least once in almost
every ones life, when your father and
mother had hard work to make a liv-
ing, and they feared that want would
come to them and you. They may have
been offered when the lips could no
longer move and the eyes were closed
for the long sleep
Oh, unanswered prayers of father and
mother, where are you? In what room
of the old homestead have they hidden?
Oh, unanswered prayers, rise in mist
of many tears into a cloud, and then
l. 10
the heart of that man who is 50 hard
he cannot cry, or that woman who is
ashamed to pray! Oh, armchair of the
aged, now empty and in the garnet
among the rubbish, speak out! Oh,
staff of the pilgrim who has ended his
ieties that bent over thee. Oh, family
Bible, with story of births and Deaths
rustic some of thy time worn leaves
and let us know of the wrinlled hands
that once turned thy pages, and ex-
plain that spot where Il tear fell upon
the passage: 80, Absalom, my son,
my son, would God | had died for
thee?"
WE MUST ALL PRAY.
Good and gracious God what will
become of us, if after having such a de-
vout and praying parentage, we never
pray for ourselves? We will pray. We
will begin now. Oh, for the power
from on high, power to move this as
semblage, power to save Brooklyn and
New York, power of evangelism that
shall sweep across this continent like
an ocean surge, power to girdle the
round earth with a red girdle dipped in
the blood of the cross! If this forward
is to begin at all, there must
be some place for it to begin, and why
not this place? And there must be
some time for it to begin, and why not
this time? And so l sound for your
ears a rhythmic invitation, which, I'M
til few days ago, never came under
my eye, but it is so sweet, so sobbing
with pathOs, so triumphant with Joy,
that whoever chimed it, instead of be-
ing anonymous, ought to be immortal:
Thy sins bore on CaIvary's tree;
The stripes, thy due, were laid on me,
That peace and pardon might be free
Owretched sinner come,
Burdened with guilt wouldst thou be blests
trust not the WOrl0' IL gives no rest.
bring relief to hearts oppreSt-
o weary sinner, come
Come, leave thy burden at the cross;
Count all thy gains but empty dross,
My grace repays all earthly loss
o needy sinner, come,
Come, hither bring thy boding fears,
Thy aching heart, thy bursting tears,
tbs mercy's voice salutes thine ears
o trembling sinner come,