Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1892-01-11


much to say about what has been ac-
conplished by the young; of Romu-
lus, who founded Rome when he was
twenty years of age; of Cortes who
had conquered Mexico at thirty
years; of Pitt, who was prime min
lister Of England at twenty-four
years; Of Raphael, who died at
thirty seven years; of Calvin, who
wrote his Institutes at twenty-s of
Melancthon, who took a learned pro-
fessors chair at twenty-one years; of
Luther, who had conquered Germany
for the Reformation by the time he
was thirty five years.
And it is all very well for us to
show how early in life one can do
very great things for God and the
welfare of the world but some of the
mightiest work for God has been
done by septuagenarians and Octo-
genarians and nonagenarians. In
deed, there is work which none but
such can do They preserve the
equipoise of senates, of religious de-
nominations, of reformatory move
ments Young men for action, old
men for counsel. Instead of any of
you beginning to fold up your ener-
gies, arouse anew your energies.
With the experience you have OBJ
tanned and the opportunities of OBJ
servation you have had during a long
life you ought to be able to do in one
year now more than you did in ten
years right after you had passed out
of your teens. Physical power less,
your spiritual power ought to be
more.
Up to the last hour of their lives
what power for good old Dr. Archi-
bald Alexander, old Dr. Woods, old
DR.. Halves, old Dr. Minor, old Dr.
McIlvaine, old DR.. Tying, old DR..
Candlish, old DIR. Chalmers! What
have been Bismarck to Germany, and
Gladstone to England, and Oliver
Wendell Holmes to America in the
time of an advanced age? Let me
say to those in the afternoon of life:
Don't be putting off the harness;
when God wants it off he will take it
off. Don't be frightened out of life by
the grip, as many are. At the first
sneeze of an influenza many give up
all as lost.
No new terror has come on the
earth The microbes as the cause of
disease were described in the Talmud
seventeen hundred years ago as ''in-
visible legions of dangerous ones"
Don't be scared out of life by all this
talk about heart failure That trouble
has always been in the world That
is what all the people that ever passed
out of this life have died of-heart
failure. Adam had it, and all of his
descendants have had it or will have
it,
Do not be watching for symptoms,
or you will have symptoms of every
thing. Some of you will yet die of
symptoms Symptoms are often only
what we sometimes see in the country
"a dead owl nailed ON barn door to
scare living owls. Put your trust in
God, go to bed at ten o'clock, have
the window open six inches to let in
the fresh air, sleep on your right side
and fear nothing. The old maxim
was right, Get thy spindle and
distaff ready, and God will send thee
flax"
TOWARD THE SUNRISE.
But while looking at this sundial
of Ahaz and | see the shadow Of it
move I notice that it went back to-
ward the sunrise instead of forward
toward the sunset toward the
morning instead of toward the night.
That thing the world is willing now
to do and in many cases has done.
There have a great many things been
written and spoken about the sunset
of life. / have said some Of them
myself. But my text suggests "a bet
ter idea. The Lord who turned back
that day from going toward shutdown
and started it toward sunrise is will
ing to do the same thing for all of us.
The theologians who stick to old
religious technicalities until they be-
come soporifics would not call it |
anything but conversion. [ call it a
change from going toward shutdown
to going toward sunrise. That man
who never tries to unbucllle the clasp |
of evil habit, and who keeps all the
sins of the past and the present |
freighting him, and who ignores the
one redemption made by the only
One who could redeem-if that man
will examine the sundial he will find |
that the shadow is going forward
and he is on the way to shutdown.
His day is on the road to night.
All the watches that tick, all the |
clocks that strike, all the sandglasses
that empty themselves, all the shad-
ows that move on all the sundials
indicate the approach of darkness.