The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-02-17

OCSt G4AlC ~ gather SOuAHs anu NAlEN III
answer: The night, by all odds, the
night" Not only the natural night,
but the night of trouble. All. my
hearers. that is the time for you to go
after souls. when night OF trouble is
on them Miss not that opportunity to
save a soul, for it is the best of ali op-
pOrtunities Gro ND along the Mohawk
or the Juniata or the Delaware or the
Tombigbee or the St. Lawrence, right
after rain, and you will find the fish
ermen all up and down the banks.
Why? Because a coed time to angle is
right after the rain. and that IS good
time to catch souls. right after shower
of misfortune, right after foods of dis
aster. And as a pool overshadOwed
with trees is a grand place for making
a fine haul of fish, so when the soul is
under the long dark shadows of anxiety
and distress, il is a good time to make
q spiritual haul People in the bright
sunshine OF prosperity are not so easily
taken
But be sure before you start out to
the gospel fisheries to get the right
kind of bait But, how you say,
IAN to get tip My answer is: Dig
for it" Where shall l dig for it?''
In the rich Bible grounds" We boys
brought up in the country had to dig
for bait before we started for the banks
of the Raritan. We put the sharp edge
of the spade against the ground, and
then put our foot on the spade, and
with one tremendous plunge of our
strength of body and viii, we drove it
in up to the handle, and then turned
over the sod. We knew nothing about
the modern redhackle, or the hy of
Orange-eolored mOhair, but we got the
right kind of bait No use trying to
angle for fish or angle for souls unless
you have the right kind of bait. and
there is plenty of it in the promises.
the parallels, the miracles, the crUciix-
ion, the heaven of the grand old gOs-
pei Yes. not only must you dig for
bait, but use only fresh bait You can
not do anything down at the pond
with old angle worms New views Of
truth. New views of God. New views
of the soul There are all the
good books to help you dig. But
make up your mind as to
whether you will take the hint of Ha-
bakkulx and Isaiah and Job and use
hook and line, or take the hint of Mat
thew and Luke and Christ and fish with
a net. think many lose their time by
wanting to fish with a net and they
never get place to swing the net; in
other words, they want to do gospel
work on big scale or they will not do
it at all l see feeble-minded Christian
men going around with a Bagster's
Bible under their arm, hoping to do the
work of an evangelist and use the net,
while they might be better content
with hook and line and take one sCul
at time. They are bad failures
as evangelists; they would be mighty
successes as private Christians
II you catch only one soul
for God that will be enough to fill pour
eternity with celebration All hail.
the fishermen with hook and line! l
have seen a man in toughest corduroy
outfit come back from the woods loaded
down with a string of fnny treasures
hung over MS shoulder and his game
bag filed. and dog with his teeth ear
rying basket filed with the surplus
of an afternoons angling, and it was
all the result Of 4 hook and line; and in
the Eternal World there Will be many
a man and many woman that was
never heard of outside Of a village Sun
day school or a prayer meeting
buried in a church basement,
who will come before the throne OF
God with a multitude of souls ransOmed
through his or her instrumentality,
and vet the work all done through per-
sonal interview one by one, one by one
You do not know who that one soul
may be. Our blessed Lord healed one
blind eye at time, one paralyzed arm
at time, and raised from the dead one
girl at a time, one young man at .
time. Admire the net that takes IN a
great many at once, but do not despise
the hook and line.
God help US amid the gospel fisheries,
whether we employ hook or net, for
the day cometh when we shall see how
much depended on our fidelity. Christ
himself declared: The kingdom Of
Heaven was like unto a net that was
cast into the sea and gathered Of every
kind, which, when it was full, they
drew to shore and sat down and gath
cred the good into vessels, but
cast the bad away: SO shall it
be at the end of the world, the angels
shall come forth and separate the wick
ed from the just" Yes, the fishermen
think it best to keep the useful and
worthless of the haul in the same net
until it is drawn upon the beach, and
then the division takes place, and if it
is on Long Island coast, the mossbunk-
ers are thrown Oat and the blue fish and
shad preserved. or If it is on the shore
Of GaIiIee, the fish classified as siluroidS
are hurled back into the water or
thrown up the bank as unclean- while
the perch and the carp and the barbel
are put in pals 20 be carried home for
use. So IN the church on earth, the
saints and the hypocrites, the generous
and the mean. the ehasce and the IN
clean are kept in the same membership,
but at death the division viii be made
and the good will be gathered into
Heaven and the bad. however many
holy communiOns they may have
celebrated, and however many rhetOr-
zeal prayers they may have Of
fered, and however many years
their names may have been on the
church rolls, viii be cast away. God
forbid that any OF Us should 5e among
the east away But may we do our
work whether snail or great as thor
oughIy as did that renowned fisher
man George W. Bethune, who spent
his summer rest angling in the waters
around the Thousand isles" and beat
Ing at their own craft those who piled
it all the year, and who the rest OF
his tina ,rIorior1sIv- preached Christ