Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1893-04-17

bargain, it is the sweetest note in every
song, it is the brightest gem in every
coronet. No time to be religious! Why
you will have to take time to be sick, tc
be troubled, to die. Our world is only
the wharf from which we are to embark
for heaven. No time to secure the
friendship Of Christ. No time to buy a
lamp and trim it for that walk through
the darkness which otherwise will be
illumined only by the whiteness of the
tombstones. No time to educate the eye
for heavenly splendors, or the hand for
choral harps, or the ear for everlasting
songs, or the soul for honor, glory and
Immortality. One would think we had
time for nothing else
Other persons apologize for not enter
ing the Christian life because it is time
enough yet. That is very like those per-
sons who send their regrets and say: II
will come in perhaps at II or 10 o'clock.
will not be there at the opening of the
banquet, but I will be there at the close. -
Not yet! Not yet!
Now, do not give any doleful view
of this Life There is nothing in my ma
fure, nothing in the grace of God, that
tends toward doleful view of human
life. have not much sympathy with
Addison's description of the ''Vision of
Mirza," where he represents human life
as being bridge of a hundred arches,
and both ends of the bridge covered with
clouds, and the race coming on, the most
of them falling down through the first
span, and all of them falling down
through the last span. 1t is a very dis
NAL picture. [ have not much sympathy
with the Spanish proverb which says,
1.-The sky is good, and the earth is good
that which is bad is between the earth
and the sky"
CHRISTIANS SHOULD BE HOPEFUL.
But while we Christian people are
bound to take cheerful view of life we
must also confess that life is great I'M
certainty, and that man who says, 81
can't become Christian because there is
time enough YETI is running risk inf
mite. You do not perhaps realize the
fact that this descending grade of sin
gets sleeper and sleeper, and that you are
gathering up rush and velocity which
after awhile may not answer to the
brakes. Oh, my friends, be not among
those who give their whole life to the
It does not seem fair while our pulses are
in full play of health that we serve our
selves and serve the world and then make
God at last the present of a coffin. 1t
does not seem right that we run our ship
from coast to coast, carrying cargoes for
ourselves, and then when the ship is
crushed on the rocks give to God the
shivered timbers. 1t is great thing for
man on his dying pillow to repent
better than never at all-but how much
better, how much more generous, it
would have been if he had repented 90
years before! My friends, you will never
get over these representations
Here is delusion. People think, II
can go on in sin and worldliness, but
after awhile [ will repent, and then it
will be as though l had come at the very
start" That is a delusion. No one ever
gets fully over procrastination. If you
give your soul to God, some other time
than this, you will enter heaven with
only half the capacity for enjoyment and
knowledge you might have had. There
will be heights of blessedness you might
have attained, you will never reach;
thrones of glory on which you might
have been seated, but which you will
never climb. We will never get over
procrastination, neither in time nor in
eternity. We have started on a march
from which there is no retreat. The
shadows of eternity gather on our path
way How insignificant is time COM
pared with the vast eternity! | was
thinking of this while coming down over
the Allegheny mountains at noon, by
that wonderful place which you have all
heard described as the Horseshoe-a de-
preston in the side of the mountain
where the train almost turns backs again
upon itself, and you see how appropriate
is the description of the HorseshOe-and
thinking on this very theme and prepar-
ing this very sermon it seemed to me as
if the great courser of eternity speeding
along had just struck the mountain with
one hoof and gone ON into illimitable
space. So short is time, so insignificant
is earth, compared with the vast eternity!
This morning voices roll down the sky,
and all the worlds of light are ready to
rejoice at your disenthrallment. Rush
not into the presence of the king ragged
with sin when you may have this robe
of righteousness. Dash not your foot to
pieces against the throne of a crucifed
Christ. Throw not your crown of life
off the battlements. All the scribes of
God are this moment ready with vol
umes of living light to record the news
of your soul emancipated.