News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1893-06-22

Mrs. Sigourney's Beautiful Lines -Be-
fore the Resurrection.
BROOKLYN, June 1S.-Rev. DR.. Tai
mage in selecting theme for today's
sevmon in the Brooklyn Tabernacle chose
Sne peculiarly suitable to the season of
fruits, the title being "Grapes From
Canaan and the text Numbers xiii, %,
''And they came unto the brook of Es-
chol and cut down from thence branch
with one cluster of grapes, and they
bare it between two upon staff"
The long trudge of the Israelites across
the wilderness was almost ended. They
had come to the borders of the promised
land. Of the Co., 900 adults who started
from Egypt for Canaan, how many do
Sou suppose got there? Five hundred
thousand? Oh, no. Not 100000, not
100000, nor so, nor 20, nor 10, but only
2 men. Oh, it was a ruinous march
that Gods people made, but their chill
dren were living, and they were on the
march, and now that they had come up
to the borders of the promised land they
were very curious to know what kind of
a place it was and whether it would be
safe to go over. SoR scouting party is
i out to reconnofter, and they exam
me the land, and they come back bring
ing specimens of its growth.
Just as you came back from Califor-
mia, bringing to your family basket of
pears or plums or apples to show what
monstrous fruit they have there, so this
scouting party cut off the biggest bunch
of grapes they could find. 1t was so
large that one man could not carry 1T,
and they thrust pole through the clus-
ter, and there was one man at either end
of the pole, and so the bunch of grapes
was transported.
| was some time ago in Il luxuriant
VINEYARD. The vine dresser had done his
work. The vine had clambered up and
spread it's wealth all over the arbor. The
sun and shower had mixed a cup which
the vine drank until with flushed cheek
1t lay slumbering in the light, cluster
against the cheek of cluster. The rinds
of the grapes seemed almost bursting
with the juice in the warm lips of the
autumnal day, and it seemed as if all
you had to do was to lift a chalice
toward the cluster and it's lifeblood
would begin to drip away. But, my
friends, in these rigorous climes we know
nothing about large grapes.
Starbo states that in Bible times and
in Bible lands there were grapevines so
large that it took two men with out
stretched arms to reach round them, and
he saws there were clusters 2 cubits In
length, or twice the length from the ell
bow to the tip of the long finger. And
Achaicus, dwelling in those lands, tells
us that during the time he was smitten
with fever one grape would Stake his
thirst for the whole day. No wonder,
then. in these Bible times two men
thought it worth their while to put their
strength together to carry down one
cluster of grapes from the promised
land.
THE DIVINE IDEA.
But this morning | bring you larger
cluster from the heavenly Eschol-a clus-
ter of hopes, cluster of prospects, clus-
ter of Christian consultations, and I am
expecting that one taste of it will rouse
up your appetite for the heavenly Ca
naan During the past winter some of
this congregation have gone away never
to return. The aged have put down
their staff and taken up the scepter.
Men in midlife came home from Office or
shop and did not go back again and
never will go back again. And the dear
children, some of them, have been gath
cred in Christ's arms. He found this
world too rough a place for them, and
SO he has gathered them in. And, oh,
how many wounded souls there are
wounds for which this world offers no
mathematician unless from the gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ there shall
come consolation there will be no con-
ISOLATION at all. Oh, that the God of all
comfort would help me while I preach
and that the God of all comfort would
help you while you hear!
First. | console you with the divinely
sanctioned idea that your departed
friends are as much yours now as they
ever were. know you sometimes get
the idea in your mind when you have
this kind of trouble that your friends
are cut off from you and they are no
longer yours, but the desire to have all
our loved ones in the same lot in the
cemetery is natural desire, universal
desire and therefore God implanted
desire and is mighty suggestive of the
fact that death has no power to break
up the family relations
If our loved ones go away from our
possession, why put a fence around
our lot in the cemetery? Why the
gathering of four or five names on
one family monument? Why the plant
ing of one cypress vine so that it covers
all the cluster of graves? Why put
100 IL e. h.
children at their feet? Why the bolt on
the gate of our lot, and the charge to
the keepers of the ground to see that the
grass is cut and the vine attended to and
the flowers planted? Why not put our
departed friends in one common field and
grave? Oh, it is because they are ours.
That child, o stricken mother! is as
much yours this morning as in the solemn
hour when God put it against your
heart and said as of old, "Take this child
and nurse it for me, and L will give thee
thy wages" 1t is no mere within. 1t is
divinely planted principle in the soul,
and God certainly would not plant a lie,
and he would not culture lie! Abraham
would not allow Sarah to be buried in a
strangers grounds, although some very
beautiful ground was offered him free
gift, but he pays 400 shekels for Mach
pelah, the cave, and the trees overshad-
owing it. The grave has been well kept,
and today the Christian traveller stands
i'm thoughtful and admiring mood gaz-
ing upon Machpelah, where Abraham
and Sarah are taking their long sleep of
1000 years.
Your father may be slumbering under
the tinkling of the bell of the Scotch
kirk. Your brother may have gone
down in the ship that foundered off Cape
Hatteras. Your little child may be sleep
ing on the verge of the Towering west
ern prairie. Yet God will gather them
all up, however widely the dust may be
scattered. Nevertheless it is pleasant to
think that we will be buried together
When my father died and we took him
out and put him down in the graveyard
of SOmerville, it did not seem so sad to
leave him there, because right beside
him was my dear, good, old, beautiful
Christian mother, and it seemed as if
she said: 81 was tired, and came to bed
a little early. / am glad you have come;
it seems as of Old"
Oh, it is a consolation to feel that when
men come and with solemn tread carry
you out to your resting place they will
open the gate through which some of
your friends have already gone and
through which many of your friends will
follow. Sleeping under the same roof,
at last sleeping under the same sod. The
autumnal leaves that drift across your
grave will drAft across theirs, the bird
songs that drop ON their mound will drop
n.,l 4lcaza -4aaz.l1-..