Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1893-05-15


churches, they fight there. If they go
into presbyteries or conferences or conso-
Citations, they fight there. My advice to
you is, if anything is to be gained for
God or the truth, stand out of the way
of the javelins. l Samuel xviii, II, "Da-
vid avoided out of his presence twice."
Washington was as mighty in his re-
treats as in his advances. His army
would several times have been destroyed
if he had not lodged. He lodged on
Long Island; he lodged ON New Jersey
heights. Lincoln on his way to inaugu-
ration at Washington was waited for by
assassins, but he took another train and
lodged the desperadoes. We have high
example of the fact that sometimes
man will serve God best by disappear
ing from this or that place, this or that
environment.
A mob brought Christ to the top of
the rocks back of Nazareth. They did
not like his preaching, and they proposed
to hurl him down the precipice. But
while they were getting ready for the
massacre Christ darted into the crowd
and amid the confusion escaped to Ca
pernaum and continued exercising dew
lis and cooling fevers and filling fish nets
and giving healthy circulation of blood
to paralysis and curing dementia and
turning corpses into living men and
women and doing his chief work.
What q good thing he lodged the
crowd on the rocks back of Nazareth!
Likewise at Jerusalem one day, while he
was sauntering up and down in Solo
mons porch waiting for an opportunity
to say kind words or do useful deed,
the people proposed to pay him for his
self sacrifices by stoning him to death,
but the record is, "He escaped out of
their hands,"
THE WONDERFUL HARP.
No, aimed at the gospel harp-harp
on which prophets played with some
what lingering and uncertain fingers,
but harp on which apostles played with
sublime certainty, and martyrs played
while their fingers were on fire. Harp
that was dripping with the blood of the
Christ, out of whose heartstrings the
harp was chorded and from whose dying
groan the strings were keyed. Oh, Cos
pei harp! All thy nerves a-tremble
with stories of self sacrifice Harp
thrummed by fingers long ago turned
to dust. Harp that made heaven listen
and will yet make all the earth hear.
Harp that sounded pardon to my sinful
soul and peace over the grave where my
dead sleep. Harp that will lead the
chant of the blood washed throng re-
deemed around the throne. May jave-
lin slay me before l fling a javelin at
that. Harp which it seems almost too
sacred for me to touch, and so I call
down from their thrones those who used
to finger it and ask them to touch it
now. Come down, William Cooper,
and run your fingers over the strings of
this harp" He says, 81 WILL" and he
plays:
There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuels veins.
Come down, Charles Wesley, and touch
the strings" He says, 81 WILL" and he
plays:
Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to thy bosom fly.
Come down, Augustus Toplady, and
sweep your fingers across this gospel
harp" He says, 81 WILL" and he plays:
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee.
Come down, Isaac Watts, and take this
harp" He says, 81 will" and he plays:
Alas, and did my Saviour bleed,
And did my Sovereign die?
''P. p. Bliss, come down and thrum this
gospel harp" He says, 81 will, "and he
plays:
Halleluiah, tits done!
believe on the Son.
Tneffable harp! Transporting harp! Harp
of earth! Harp of heaven! Harp sanity
and seraphic! Harp of God! Oh, like
the idea Of that old monument in the
ancient church at Ullard, near Kilkenny,
Ireland The sculpture on that monu-
ment, though chiseled more than a
thousand years ago, as appropriate today
as then, the sculpture representing harp
upon q cross. That is where / hang it
now; that is where you had better hang
it. Let the javelin be forever buried, the
sharp edge down. but hang the harp upon
ihe cross.
And now upon our souls let the harps
Of heaven rain music, and as when the
runs rays fall aslant in Switzerland ct
the approach of eventide, and the shep-
herd among the Alps puts the horn to
his lips and blows blast and says,
''Glory be to God" and all the shep-
herds on the Alpine heights or down in
the deep valleys respond with other
blasts of horns, saying, "Glory be to
God" and then all the shepherds uncover
their heads and kneel in worship, and
after 90 few moments of silence some
shepherd rises from his knees and blows
another blast of the horn and says,
Thanks be to Cod" and all through the
mountains the response comes from other
shepherds, Thanks be to God" so this
moment let all the valleys of earth re-
spond to the hills of heaven, with sounds
IF glory and thanks, and it be harp
of earthly worship to harp of heavenly
worship, and the words of st. John i'll
the Anocalypse be fulfilled. 81 heard q