Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1892-09-05

/ bedp0St. III perfect gleo at the thought OF
emancipation. Who are that army of
six thousand six hundred and sixty-slI?
| They are the Theban legion who died
for the faith. Here is a larger host in
magnificent array-eight hundred and
eighty-four thousand-who persisted for
Christ in the prosecutions of Diocletian.
Yonder is family group, Felicitas, OF
Rome, and her children. While they
were dying for the faith she stood en-
Gouraging them. One son was whipped
! to death Ivy tborns, another was flung
from a rock, another was beheaded. At
last the mother became a martyr. There
they are together-l family group III
heaven. 1onder is John Bradford, who
said in tie fire, I'VE shall have merry
suppcl. v,i>-l the Lord tonightl' Yonder
is Henry Wees, who exclaimed as he
died, III | had ten heads they should all
fall off for Christi
The great throng of the martyrs.
They had hot lead poured down their
Threats; horses were fastened to their
hands, and other horses to their feet,
and thus they were pulled apart; they
had their tongues pulled out by red hot
pincers; they were sewed up in the skins
of animals and then thrown to the dogs;
they were tiaubed with combushbles
and then set on fire! If all the martyrs
stakes that have been kinG1ed could be
set at proper distances they would make
the midnight all tho world over bright
as MONDAY!
And now they sit yonder in the mar
tyrs' gallery. For them the fires Of per-
secuticn have gone out. The swords
are sheathed and the mob hushed. Now
they watch us with an all observing
sympathy. They know all the pain, all
the hardship, all the anguish, all the in
Justice, all the privation. They cannot
keep still. They cry: Courage! The
fire will not consume. The floods can
not drown. The lions cannot devour!
Courage! down there in the arena
What, are they all looking? This
night we answer back the salutation
they give, and cry, 'tHaill sons and
daughters Of the fret
ALL BRETHREN IN CHRIST.
look again and see another gallery.
that of eminent Christians. Whatstri
me strangely is the mixing in com
panionship Of those who on earth could
not agree. There is Albert Barnes, and
around him the presbytery who tried
him for heterodo1y! Yonder is Lyman
Beecher and the church court that de-
nounced himi Stranger than all, there
is John Calvin and James Arminius.
Who would have thought that they
would sit SO lovingly together? There is
George Whitefield and the ministers
who would not let him come into their
pulpits because they thought him a ia
matte. There are the sweet singers Top
lady, Montgomery, Charles Wesley,
Isaac Watts and Mrs. Sigourney. If
heaven had had no music before they
went up, they would have started the
singing.
And there the band of missionaries
David Abel, talking Of China redeemed;
and John Scadder, Of India saved; and
David Brainard, of the aborigines evan
Celized and Mrs. Adoniram Judson,
whose pray ers for Burlnah took heaven
by violence! All these Christians art.
looking into the arena. Our struggle Is
nothing to theirs! Do we, in Christ's
cause, suffer from tho cold? They
walked Grccnland's icy mountains. Do
we suffer from the heat? They swell
tered IN the tropics. Do we get fatigued?
They tainted, with none to care for
them but cannibals. Are we perSe-
cuted? They were mathematical. AND
as they look from their gallery and see
us falte-' IN tho presence Of the lions,
seem to hear Isaac Watts addressing
us in his old hymn, only q little changed:
Must you be carried to tao skies
On Gcwcry beds of case
While others fought to win tho prize
Or sailed through bloody seas!
Toplady shouts in his old hyaln:
Your herps, We trembling saints,
Down from the willows take;
Loud to the praise of love divine,
Bid every string awake.
While Charles Wesley, the Methodist,
breaks forth in his favorite words, a lit
tie varied:
A charge to keep you have,
A God to giorify;
a never dying soul II save,
And fit it for the SKY!
OUR DEPARTED FRIENDS.
look again and [ see the gallery of
our departed Many Of those III the
other gall ories we have heard Of, but
these we knew. Oh, how familiar Their
faces! They sat at our tables, and We
walked to the house Of God in company.
Have they forgotten us? Those fathers
and mothers started us on the road O:
life re- thew careless as To what ba-