News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1893-06-15

BROOKLYN, June 11.-Rev. DIR. Tai
mage chose as the subject for his sermon
today ''The Thrashing Machine" the
text being from Isaiah xviii, 81, %, "Fo1
the ftches are not thrashed with &
thrashing instrument, neither is a car
wheel turned about upon the cummin
but the fitches are beaten out with {
staff and the cummin with rod. Bread
corn is bruised because he will not evel
be thrashing it.
There are three kinds of seed men
tioned-ftches, cummin and corn. OF
the last we all know. But it may be
well to state that the ftches and the
cummin were small seeds like the cara
way or the chickpea. When these grains
or herbs were to be thrashed, they were
Thrown on the floor, and the workmer
would come around with staff or rod OF
fail and beat them until the seed would
he separated, but when the corn was tt
be thrashed that was thrown on the
floor, and the men would fasten horses
or oxen to a cart with iron dented
wheels. That cart would be drawn
around the thrashing floor, and SO the
work would be accomplished. Different
kinds of thrashing for different products
''The fitches are not thrashed with 6
thrashing instrument, neither is a cart
wheel turned about upon the cummin,
but the fitches are beaten out with g
staff and the cummin with rod. Bread
corn is bruised because he will not ever
be thrashing it,"
THE THRASHING PROCESS.
The great thought that the text presses
upon our souls is that we all go through
some kind of thrashing process. The
fact that you may be devoting your life
to honorable and noble purposes will not
win you any escape. Wlberforce, the
Christian emancipation, was in his day
derisively called "Dr. Cantwell. "
Thomas Darlington Macaulay, the adj
vocate of all that was good long before
he became the most conspicuous histo-
rian of his day, was caricatured in one of
the quarterly reviews as ''Babbletongue
Macaulay." Norman Mcleod, the great
friend of the Scotch poor, was industri-
ously maligned in all quarters, although
on the day when he was carried out to
his burial a workman stood and looked
at the funeral procession and said, eff
he had done nothing for anybody more
than he has done for me, he should shine
as the stars forever and ever" All the
small wits of London had their fling at
John Wesley, the father of Methodism.
If such men could not escape the ma
ligning of the world, neither can you ex-
pect to get rid of the sharp, keen stroke
of the tribulum All who will live god
ly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecu-
ton. Besides that there are the sick
nesses, and the bankruptcies, and the If
ritations, and the disappointments which
are ever putting cup of aloes to your
lip. Those wrinkles on your face are
hieroglyphics which, if deciphered,
would make out thrilling story of
trouble. The featstep of the rabbit is
seen the next morning on the snow, and
on the white hairs of the aged are foot
prints showing where swift trouble
alighted.
Even amid the joys and hilarities of
life trouble will sometimes break in. AS
when the people were assembled in the
Charlestown theater during the Revolu-
tionary war and while they were wit
Messing farce and the audience was in
great graduation the guns of an adj
vancing army We're heard and the au-
dience broke up in wild panic and ran
for their lives, SO ofttimes while you are
seated amid the joys and festivities of
this world you hear the cannonade of
some great disaster. All the fitches, and
the cumnin. and the corn must come
down on the thrashing floor and be
pounded.
My subject, in the first place, teaches
us that it is no compliment to us if we
escape great trial The fitches and the
cummin on the thrashing floor might
look over to the corn on another thrash
ing floor and say: Look at that poor,
miserable, bruised corn. We have only
been a little pounded, but that has been
almost destroyed" Well, the corn, if it
had lips, would answer and say: do
you know the reason you have not been
as much pounded as | nave? 1t is be-
cause You are not of so much worth as
I am. If you were. you would be as
severely run over"
Yet there are men who suppose they
are the Lords favorites simply because
their barns are full, and their bank &C
count is flush, and there are no funerals
in the house. 1t may be because they are
ftches and cummin, while down at the
end of the lane the poor widow may be
the Lords corn. You are but little
pounded because you are but little worth,
and she bruised and ground because she
is the best part of the harvest.
The heft of the thrashing machine is
according to the value of the grain. If
you have not been much thrashed in life,
perhaps there is not much to thrash. If
you have not been much shaken of trou-
BILE, perhaps it is because there is going
to be very small yield. When there
are plenty of blackberries, the gatherers
go out with large baskets, but when the
drought has almost consumed the fruit
then quart measure will do as well. 1t
took the venomous snake ON Paul's hand
and the pounding of him with stones I'M
til he was taken up for dead, and the jam
ming against him of prison gates, and
the Ephesian vociferation, and the
skinned ankles of the painful stocks, and
the laundering Of the Alexandrian corn
Roman sheriff to bring Paul to his prop
er development.
1t was not because Robert Moffat and
Lady Rachel Russell and Frederick Ober-
lin were worse than other people that
they had to G1ffer; it was because they
were better and God wanted to make
them best. By the carefulness of the
thrashing you may always conclude the
value of the grain.
HOW TO BEAR THE BURDEN.
Next my text teaches us that God
proportions our trials to what we can
bear, the staff for the fitches, the rod for
the cummin, the iron wheel for the corn.
Sometimes people in great trouble say,
'Oh, can't bear itP' But you did bear
it. God would not have sent it upon you
If he did not know that you could bear
it. You trembled, and you swooned, but
you got through. God will not take
from your eyes one tear too many, nor
from your lungs one sigh too deep, nor
from your temples one throb too sharp
The perplexities of your earthly business
have not in them one tangle too intricate
You sometimes feel as if our world
We're full of bludgeons flying haphazard.
Oh, no; they are thrashing instruments
that God just suits to your case. There
is not dollar of bad debts on your ledg-
er, or disappointment about goods
that you expected to go up, but that
have gone down, or a swindle of your
business partner, or a trick on the part
of those who are in the same kind of
business that you are, but God intended
tooverrule for your immortal help. ooh"