Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1893-02-09

net, and they never zee place 20 swing the
net. In other words, they want to do gos-
pei work on big scale, or they will not do
it at all.
see feeble minded Christian men going
around with Bagster's Bible under their
arm, hoping to do the work of an evan
gelist and use tho net while they might be
better content with hook and line and take
one soul at time. They are bad failures
as evangelists; they would be mighty sue
cesses as private Christians If you catch
only one soul for God that will be enough
to fill your eternity with celebration. All
hail the fisherman with hook and line!
l have seen a man in toughest corduroy
outfit come bach from the woods loaded
down with q string of iinny treasures hung
over his shoulder, and his gamebag filed,
and dog with his teeth carrying basket
filled with the surplus of an afternoons
angling, and it was all the result of hook
and line. Aud in the eternal world there
will be many Il man and many q woman
that was never heard of outside of village
Sunday school or prayer meeting buried
in u church basement who will come be
fore the throne of God with n multitude Of
souls ransomed through his or her instr,i-
mentality, and yet the work all done
through personal interview, one by one,
one by one
You do not know who that one soul may
be- Staupitz helped one soul into the light,
but it was Martin Luther. Thomas Bilney
brought salvation to one soul, but il was
Hugh Latimer. An edge tool maker was
the means of saving one soul but it was
John Summerfipld our blessed Lord healed
one blind eye Mt n time, one paralyzed arm
at II time, CHE dropsical patient AZ a time,
and raised from the dead one girl at time
one young man AT u time. Admire the net
that takes in Il great many at once, but do
not despise the hook and line.
IN TIE GOSPEL FISHERIES.
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 him
self declared The kingdom Of heaven is
| like unto u 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 gathered hn good in the vessel
/ but cast the bad away. SO shall it he ut
/ the end of the world-thc angels shall come
forth and separate the wicked 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 mossbankers
are thrown out and the bluctish and shad
preserved or il it is on The shore Of Galilee
the fish classified as siluroids are hurled
back into the water or thrown up on the
bank as unclean, while the perch and the
carp and the barbcl are put into pals to he
carried hone for use.
SO in the church on earth, the saints and
the hypocltes, Che generous and the mean,
the chaste and the unclean, are kept in the
same membership, but at death the divi-
sion will be made, aud the good will be gath
cred into heaven, and the bad, however
many holy commuters they may have
celebrated, and however many rhetorical
prayers they may have offered, and how
ever many years their names may have
been on the church rolls, will be cast away.
God forbid that any of us should be among
the cast awayn' But may we do our
work, whether small or great, as thorough
ly as did that renowned fisherman, George
w. Bethune, who spent his summer rest
angling in the waters around the Thou
| sand Isles and beating at their own craft
those who piled it all the year, and who
the rest Of the time gloriously preached
Christ in "A pulpit only Is minutes from
where | now stand, and ordering for his
own obsequies: Put on me my pulpit
gown and bands, with my own pocket
Bible in my right hand. Bury me with my
mother, my father and my grandmother
Sing also my own hymn:
Jesus thou prince Of life!
Thy chosen cannot die;
Like thee, they conquer in the strife,
10 reign with thee on high"