News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1892-06-16

useful and benetiCent. Stay out or ali
associations that would damage your
Christian character. Take only those as
sociations that will help you. A learned
man said, IF stay with that man Fene-
Ion any longer, L shall get to be Chris
tain in spite of myself" In other words
there is a mighty power III Christian as
sociations. Now what kind of assoc1a-
tons shall we, as young Christians, seek
after? l think we ought to get into COM
pany better than ourselves, never going
into company worse than ourselves. If
we get into company little better than
ourselves and there are tea people IN
that company, ten chances to one we Will
be bettered. If we get into company a
little worse than ourselves, and there be
J ten people in that company, ten chances
to one we will be made worse than we
were before.
Now, when a young Christian enters
the church, God does not ask him to re-
tire from the world. The anchorite that
lives on acorns is no nearer heaven than
the man who lives on partridge and wild
duck. Isolation is not demanded by the
Bible. A man may use the world with
the restriction of not abusing it. But
? inst as soon as you find any surroundings
pernicious to your spiritual interest, quit
those associations. This remark is more
especially appropriate to the young. Now
it is impossible that the young and I'M
troubled should seek their associations
with those who are aged and worn out
AS God intended the aged to associate
with the aged, talking over the past and
walking staff in hand along the same
paths they trod thirty, forty and fifty
years ago, so | suppose he intended the
young chiefly to associate with the young.
The grace of God does not demand that
we be unnatural do not want you to
take this caution | have given you as
that of a growing misanthrope, hating
hilarity. For you must have a spring
bow if you want to make the arrow fly.
But while this is so, want you to be es-
pecially on guard in this matter, and let
the religion of Jesus Christ control you
in all your associations. | know young
people who have meant well enough, but
they have f1oated off into evil influences,
and they have associated day by day with
those who hated God and despise his
commandments, and their characters are
all depleted. | can see they are changed
for the worse, but they are not aware of
it. Oh, young man, come out of that bad
association. | do not know what it is. l
do not know to what place you may
have private key. l do not know to
what place you go without the sanction
) of those who love you very much.
do not pretend to point cut any evil
influences, but are there not some sur
to your growth in grace? Stand back
from that furnace in which so many
young Christians have been destroyed.
In this church there is large company
of young men and young women con-
secrated to Christ. | know of no better
than they are.
Young convert, invite you into their |
friendship Contact with them will ele- |
vate you. All hail, young followers of |
Jesus Christ, my joy and my pride! Ny |
heart thrills at every step of your adj |
vancement l talked with you in that |
hour when you most tried to break from |
sin, and / now rejoice as | see you put
ting on the armor of conflict in which |
God will give you present and everlast-
ing victory. Stand off from all evil as
Bociations. A man is no better than the |
company he keeps. Go among those
who are better than you are, and you
will be made better. Go among those |
who are worse than you are and you
will be madesworse.
BE BRIGHT AND CHEERFUL.
Ny next word of counsel is that you
be actively employed. l see great
many Christians with doubts and per-
| plexities, and they seem to be proud of
| them. Their entire Christian life is
made up of gloom, and they seem to
cultivate that spiritual dependency,
when l will undertake to say that in
nine cases out of ten spiritual despond-
ency is a judgment of God upon idle
ness. Who are the happy people in the
church today? The busy people. Show
me man who processes the religion of
Jesus Christ and is idle, and will show
you an unhappy man. The very first
prescription that I give to man when
I find him full of doubts and fears about
his eternal interest is to go to work for
God. Ten thousand voices are lifted up
asking for your help. Go and help.
Here is a wood full of summer in
sects. An AMMAN goes into the wood to
him very much, and every stroke of the
AK makes them fly away. But let man
go and lie down there, and he is bitten
and mauled, and thinks it is horrible
thing to stay in the wood. Why does
he not take an ak and go to work? So |
there are thousands of Christians now
in the church who go out amid great
annoyances in life-they are not per-
picked, they are all the time busy: while |
there are others who do nothing, and
they are stung and stung and stung
and covered from head to foot with the |
blotches of Incidence and inactivity, and |
spiritual death.
The first thing, then, you have TO do, |
o Christian young man, Christian young
woman, is to go to work in the service |
of the Lord, if you want to be happy
Christian. When an army goes out, |
there are always stragglers falling off |
here and there, some because they are
faint and sick, but great many because !
they are afraid to fight and too lazy to |
march. After while the lazy men ON |
the road hear the booming of the guns
for hours, and they hear the shout Of |
victory, and man on horseback comes |
up and says, 1--WE have won the day!' |
Then they hasten up. How brave they |
are after the battle is over. Poor at |
fighting, but grand at "huzzar' So |
there are stragglers going after the |
Lords host. There come days of dark
ness and battle. Where are they? We |
call the roll of the host. They make no
answer, but after while there comes a |
day of triumph in the church, and they |
are all about "Huzza! huzza! Didn't |
we give it to them!"
PRAYER A GREAT STRENGTHENED
have another word of counsel to give
those who have just entered Christian
life, and that is, Be faithful in prayer
You might as well, business man, start |
out in the morning without food and ex-
pect to be strong all that day-you might |
as we'll abstain from food all the week
and expect to be strong physically, as to
be strong without prayer. The only way
to get any strength into the soul is by
prayer, and the only difference between
that Christian that is worth everything
and that who is worth nothing is the
fact that the last does not pray and the
other does.
And the only difference between this
Christian, who is getting along very fast
in the holy life, and this, who is only
getting along tolerably, is that the
first prays more than the last. You can
graduate mans progress in religion by