The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1892-11-04
THE LONDONDERRY SITTER,
Sing your saylour's worthy praise,
Glorious In his works and ways.
Ye are travelling home TO God
In the way your fathers trod;
They are happy now, and we
Soon their hannineas Rhall aAa

l "~N~-
The church of God never will be
triumphant church until 1t becomes
singing church.
go further and remark that the bird
Of the air are wiser than we in the fac
that In their migration they fly YER
high. During the summer, when the
are In the fields, they often come within
reach Of the gun, but when they star
for the annual fight southwark the,
take their places midheaven and g
straight as an arrow to the mark. TIL
longest rifle that was ever brought II
shoulder cannot reach them. Would I,
God that we were as wise as the storl
and crane in our fight heavenward
We fly so low that we are within cas-,
range Of the world, the flesh and tn,
devil. We are brought down by temp
tations that ought not to come within ,
mile of reaching us.
Oh, for some of the faith Of Georg,
Muller, Of England, and Alfred Cook
man, once of the church militant, nov
of the church triumphant! So poor Il
the type Of piety in the church of Goo
now that men actually caricature tn,
idea that there is any such thing as
higher life. Moles never did believe il
eagles. But, my brethren, because W.
have not reached these heights ourselves
shall we deride the fact that there are
any such heightsf
A man was once talking to Brunei
the famous engineer, about the length
of the railroad from London to Bris oil.
The engineer said: at is not very great
We shall have after awhile steamer
running from England to New York.
They laughed him to scorn; but we have
gone so far now that we have ceased to
laugh at anything as impossible for hui
man achievement Then, ask, is any.
thing impossible for the Lordp do not
believe that God exhausted all his grace
in Paul and Latimer and Edward Pay
son. l believe there are higher points of
Christian attainment to be reached in
the future ages of the Christian world.
KEEP ABOVE THE ATMOSPHERE OF SIN
You tell me that Paul went up to the
tiptop of the Alps of Christian attain
ment. Then l tell you that the stork
and crane have found above the Alps
plenty of room for free flying. We go
out and we conquer our temptations by
the grace of God and lie down. On the
morrow those temptations rally them
selves and attack us, and by the grace of
God we defeat them again, but staying
all the time in the old encampment we
have the same old battles to fight over.
Why not whip out our temptations and
then forward march, making one raid
through the enemy's country, stopping
not until we break ranks after the last
victory
Do, my brethren, let us have some
novelty of combat at any rate, by chang
ing, by going on, by making advance
ment, trading off our stale prayers about
sins we ought to have quit long ago,
going on toward higher state of Chris
tan character and routing out sins that
we have never thought of yet. The fact
is, if the church of God, if we, as indi-
viduals, made rapid advancement in the
Christian life, these stereotyped prayers
we have been making for ten or fifteen
years would be as inappropriate to us as
the shoes, and the hats, and the coats
we wore ten or fifteen years ago. Oh,
for higher fight in the Christian life,
the stork and the crane in their migra-
ton teaching us the lesson!
Dear Lord, and shall we ever live
At this poor dying rate
Our love so faint, SO cold to thee,
And thine to us SO great?
Again, l remark that the birds of the
air are wiser than we, because they
know when to start. If you should 90
out now and shout, "Stop, storks and
cranes; don't be in hurry!" they would
say: "No, we cannot stop. Last night
we heard the roaring in the woods bid
ding us away, and the shrill flute of the
north wind has sounded the retreat
We must go. We must CO." So they
gather themselves into companies, and
turning not aside for storm or mountain
top or shock Of musketry, over land and
sea, straight as an arrow to the mark,
they go.
And if you come out this morning
with sack Of corn and throw it in the
fields and try to get them to stop, they
are so far up they would hardly see it.
They are on their way south. You
could not stop them. Oh, that we were
as wise about the best time to start for
God and heavenl We say: "Wait until |
it is little later in the season of mercy.
Wait until some of these green leaves of |
hope are all dried up and have been
scattered. Wait until next year" And |
after awhile we start, and it is too late.
and we perish in the way when Gods
wrath is kindled but little.
FATE OF THOSE WHO LINGRR TOO LONG. |
There are, you know, exceptional
cases where birds have started too late.
and in the morning you have found
them dead en- the snow. And there are
;hose who have persisted half way be-
tween the world and Christ. they
waited until the last sickness, when the
mind was gone, or they were on the ex-
press train going at forty miles an hour,
and they came to the bridge, and the
draw was up" and they went down.
how long to repent and pray? Two
seconds! Two seconds! To do the work
If lifetime and to prepare for the vast
eternity in two seconds!
l was reading of an entertainment
given in kings court, and there were
there with elaborate pieces of
music. After awhile Mozart came and
began to play, and he had blank piece
If paper before him, and the king famil-
arly looked over his shoulder and said:
What are you playing? 1 see no music
before you" And Mozart put his hand
IN his brow, as much as to say, II am
1t was very well for him,
'ut, oh, my friends, we cannot extern
'orize heaven! If we do not get pre-
Jared in this world we will never take
part in the orchestral harmonies of the
aved. Oh, that we were as wise as the
'rane and the stork, flying away, flying
way from the tempestl
Some of you have felt the pinching
rost of sin. You feel it today. You
ire not happy. l look into your faces
md l know you are not happy. There
ire voices within your soul that will not
,rNG IL