News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1892-04-14

5 IssMhak - - - y meant grsI|
blade under my feet?' Il am doing g
work says the grass blade, .'as best
can. help to make up the soft beauty
of field and lawn. | am satisfied if
with millions of others no bigger than
we can give pasture to the fiocks and
herds. | am wonderfully made. He
who feeds the ravens gives me susie
nance from the soil and breath. from the
air, and he who clothes the lilies of the
field rewards me with this coat of green.
"For what, lonely cloud, goest thou
across the heavens?' Through the
bright air voice drops from afar, say
ing: up and down this sapphire floor !
pace to teach men that, like me, they
are passing away. | gather up the
| waters from lake and sea and then,
when the thunders toll, refresh the
earth, making the dry ground to laugh
with harvests of wheat and fields of
corn. | catch the frown of the storm
and the hues of the rainbow. At even
| tide on the western slopes | will
| pitch my tent, and over me shall dash
the saffron and the purple and the fire
of the sunset. 4 pillar of cloud like me
| led the chosen across the desert, and sur
rounded by such as | the judge of
heaven and earth will at last descend,
| for Behold he cometh with cloudsr >
| Oh, my friends, if everything in the in
animate world be useful, let us immor-
| tai men and women be useful, and in
that respect be like the palm tree. But
I must not be tempted by what David
says of that green shaft of Palestine,
that living and glorious pillar in the
eastern gardens, as seen in olden times
the palm tree; | must not be tempted
by what the Old Testament says of it to
lessen my emphasis of what John the
Evangelist says Of it in my text.
LAWFUL ROBBERY.
Notice that it was a beautiful and
lawful robbery of the palm tree that
helped make up Christs triumph on the
road. to Jerusalem that Palm Sunday.
The long, broad, green leaves that were
strewn under the feet of the colt, and in
the way of Christ were torn off from the
trees. What a pity, some one might
say, that those stately and graceful trees
should be despoiled. The sap oozed out
at the places where the branches broke.
| The glory of the palm tree was appro-
| priately sacrificed for the Savioar's tri-
| umphal procession. So it always was,
| so it always will be in this world-no
worthy triumph of any sort without the
| tearing down of something else. Brook
Ign bridge, the glory of our continent,
must have two architects Frustrated,
the one slain by his tolls and the other
for a lifetime invaded. The greatest
pictures of the world had, in their rich
est coloring, the blood of the artists who
made them. The mightiest oratorios
that ever rolled through the churches
had, in their pathos, the signs and groans
OF the composers, who wore their lives
out in writing the harmony. American
independence was triumphant, but it
moved on over the lifeless forms of tens
of thousands of men who fell at Bunker
Hill and Yorktown and the battles be-
tween, which were the hemorrhages of
the nation. The kingdom of God adj
vances in all the earth, but it must be
over the lives of missionaries who die of
malaria in the jungles or Christian
workers who preach and pray and toll
and die in the service. The Saviour tri-
umphs in all directions-but beauty and
strength must be torn down from the
palm trees of Christian heroism and con-
secration and thrown in his pathway.
To what better use could those palm
trees on the southern shoulder of Mount
Olivet and clear down into the Valley of
Gethsemane put their branches than to
surrender them for the making of
Christ's journey toward Jerusalem the
.<+,1 hn 10
and the more triumphant? And to what
better use could we put our lives than
into the sacrifice for Christ and his cause
and the happiness of our fellow crea-
lures? Shall we not be willing to be
torn down that righteousness shall have
triumphant way? Christ was torn down
for u.s. Can we not afford to be torn
down for him? If Christ could suffer so
much for us, can we not suffer a little
for Christ? If he can afford on Palm
Sunday to travel to Jerusalem to carry
cross, can we not afford few leaves
from our branches to make emerald his
way?
A FEW LEAVES FROM OUR BRANCHES.
The process is going on every moment
in all directions. What makes that
father have such hard work to find the
hymn today? He puts on his spectacles
and holds the book close up, and then
holds it far off, and is not quite sure
whether the number of the hymn is 80
or 100, and the fingers with which he
turns the leaves are very clumsy. He
stoops good deal, although once he was
straight as an arrow, and his eyes were
keen as a hawks, and the hand he
offered to his bride on the marriage day
was of goodly shape and as God made it.
/ will tell you what is the matter. Forty
years ago he resolved his family should
have no need and his children should be
well educated and suffer none of the
disadvantages of lack of schooling from
which he had suffered for a lifetime and
that the wolf of hunger should never
put it's paw ON his doorsill, and FOR
forty or fifty years he has been tearing
off from the palm tree of his physical
strength and manly form branches to
throw in the pathway of his household.
1t has cost him muscle and brain and
health and eyesight, and there have
been twisted off more years from his life
than any man in the crowd on the
famous Palm Sunday twisted off
branches from the palm trees on the
road from Bethpage to Jerusalem What
makes that mother look so much older
than she really is? You say she ought
not yet to have one gray line in her HAIR.
The truth is the family was not always
as well off as now. The married pair
had hard struggle at the start. Ex-
anime the tips Of the forefnger and
thumb of her right hand and they will
tell you the story of the needle that was